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Kindle Notes & Highlights
who is the one person in the world you have the greatest power over? It’s your future self. You hold that life in your hands, and what it will be depends on how you care for it.
It’s impossible to change the past or the present: you can only accept all that as it is. But you can tend to the causes of a better future.
you are a human being like any other—and just as deserving of happiness, love, and wisdom.
Everything that begins must also cease. Everything that comes together must also disperse. Experiences are thus incapable of being completely satisfying. They are an unreliable basis for true happiness.
it’s only in the present moment that we find real happiness, love, or wisdom.
inescapable physical or mental discomfort is the “first dart” of existence. As long as you live and love, some of those darts will come your way.
Do all that you can, with all that you have, in the time that you have, in the place where you are.
desire per se is not the root of suffering; craving is.
look for things to be happy about, and take in the good whenever possible.
Don’t argue unless you have to. Inside your own mind, try not to get swirled along by the mind-streams of other people.
many people are like logs: it’s wise to get out of their way if you can—or reduce the impact—but they’re not aiming at you.
As soon as you feel mistreated, bring compassion to yourself—this is urgent care for the heart.
Your ill will always harms you, but often it has no effect on the other person; as they say in twelve-step programs: Resentment is when I take poison and wait for you to die.
Accept as a fact that people will sometimes mistreat you, whether accidentally or deliberately.
Simplify your life; give up lesser pleasures for greater ones.
If there is no stillness, there is no silence. If there is no silence, there is no insight. If there is no insight, there is no clarity. —Tenzin Priyadarshi
It’s not what happened in the past that matters but what you do now.
