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Spirituality is not religion. It is a path for us to generate happiness, understanding, and love, so we can live deeply each moment of our life. Having a spiritual dimension in our lives does not mean escaping life or dwelling in a place of bliss outside this world but discovering ways to handle life’s difficulties and generate peace, joy, and happiness right where we are, on this beautiful planet.
To meditate is to look deeply and see the things that others cannot see, including the wrong views that lie at the base of our suffering.
The first wrong view we need to liberate ourselves from is the idea that we are a separate self cut off from the rest of the world.
the concentration on letting go helps us disentangle ourselves from suffering and transform and release painful feelings.
Emptiness means to be full of everything but empty of a separate existence.
Like the flower, we contain earth, water, air, sunlight, and warmth. We contain space and consciousness. We contain our ancestors, our parents and grandparents, education, food, and culture. The whole cosmos has come together to create the wonderful manifestation that we are. If we remove any of these “non-us” elements, we will find there is no “us” left.
whenever we are angry at our mother or father, we are also being angry at ourselves.
No matter how sophisticated our scientific instruments, we cannot find anything in our person that remains the same and that we can call a soul or a self. Once we accept the reality of impermanence, we have to also accept the truth of no self.
“Yes, that is me.” All of these people are us. We inter-are with everyone. When we can free ourselves from the idea of separateness, we have compassion, we have understanding, and we have the energy we need to help.
The teaching on emptiness is not about the “dying” of the self. The self does not need to die. The self is just an idea, an illusion, a wrong view, a notion; it is not reality. How can something that is not there die?
It is not only Jesus or the Buddha or any other great spiritual teacher who is with us after their death; all of us continue as energy long after our physical body has changed form.
We should always keep our hearts open to the people who have different views or beliefs.
In the West, Buddhism is often associated with the ideas of reincarnation, karma, and retribution, but these are not originally Buddhist concepts. They were already well established when the Buddha began teaching. In fact, they were not at all at the heart of what the Buddha taught.
The day you call your birthday is really a day to remember your continuation. Every day you are alive is a continuation day. Within your body, birth and death are always taking place. We are coming into existence and going out of existence at every moment of our life.
Once we’ve touched the ultimate truth, we see that the categories of “alive” and “dead” don’t apply—whether it’s to a cloud, an acorn, an electron, a star, ourselves, or our beloved ones.
if you have the mind of love, you are a buddha in action.
A beloved community is a community of people who share the same aspiration and want to support each other to realize that aspiration.
Many still believe that God can exist separately from the cosmos, his creation. But you cannot remove God from yourself; you cannot remove the ultimate from yourself.
I don’t exercise to get fit or be healthier; I do it to enjoy being alive.
In the light of Buddhist teachings, we can say that the ultimate nature of reality, the true nature of God, transcends all notions, including the notions of good and evil. To say anything less is to diminish God.
If God is only on the side of goodness, then God cannot be the ultimate reality.
