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May all beings be happy May all beings be healed and whole May all have whatever they want and need May all be protected from harm, and free from fear May all beings enjoy inner peace and ease May all be awakened, liberated and free May there be peace in this world, and throughout the entire universe.
The Buddha himself said that if you repeatedly practice this meditation and recitation - with a forgiving, loving heart, while relinquishing judgement, anger and prejudice - great benefits will definitely ensue: You will sleep easily, wake easily, and have pleasant dreams; people will love you; celestial beings will love you and protect you; weapons, poisons, fire and other external dangers will not harm you; your face will be radiant and your mind concentrated and serene; and you will die unconfused and be reborn in happy realms.
From "Awakening the Buddha Within" by Lama Surya Das
Those of us who embark on spiritual paths are motivated in different ways. Some of us want to know the unknowable; others want to know themselves; still others want to know everything. Some people want transformation; others want miracles. Many want to alleviate suffering, help others and leave the world a better place. Most of us are seeking love or fulfilment in one way or another. Everyone wants inner peace, acceptance, satisfaction and happiness. We all want genuine remedies to feelings of despair, alienation and hopelessness. Don't we all want to find spiritual nourishment and healing, renewal and a greater sense of meaning?
Perhaps you sometimes feel a homesickness, a sadness and a sense that something is terribly wrong. You might experience this as a yearning for something that is lost, something that seems so familiar and yet so distant. You might feel hungry and needy and aware that nothing has been able to fully satisfy you - at least not for very long. It's like drinking salt water while floating adrift on the great ocean; it's a drink that can't possibly alleviate your thirst.
Rejoice! You are living the core issues grappled with by every consciously alive human being. This is no small thing - this is 'The Big Time', the Great Way walked by all those who have awakened to freedom, peace and enlightenment. You're in the heavyweight division, wrestling with the multi-dimensional angels of life. You want to see them, you want to understand them, and - like Jacob - you want to be blessed by them.
From "Awakening the Buddha Within" by Lama Surya Das
Let precious bodhicitta be your organising principle. Help, and do not harm others. Cultivate these remembrances in everything you do: be gentle, be kind, be thoughtful, be caring, be compassionate, be loving, be fair, be reasonable, be generous to everyone - including yourself.
It really is possible to love everyone - even if you don't always like everyone. I had to personally learn this lesson when for several years I was privileged to wear a monk's robe and have a shaved head in cloistered retreats. At first it felt to me as though I was in a no-exit, arranged marriage with an internationa group of strangers. But eventually one couldn't escape the fact that we all pretty much wanted and needed the same things - that we're all on the same team, the same side on the spiritual battlefield.
I've also learned that you don't alway get to pick the people with whom you travel the journey. You might sometimes think you do, but don't be deceived. And the corollary of that - and this was my lesson - is that you start to realise that you can love even the people you don't like and must love and help everybody
If you listen to the Dhamma teachings but don't practice you're like a ladle in a soup pot. The ladle is in the soup pot every day, but it doesn't know the taste of the soup. You must reflect and meditate.
Dhamma is in your mind, not in the forest. Don't believe others. Just listen to your mind. You don't have to go and look anywhere else. Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one.
~ Ajahn Chah
Sometimes it is difficult to find time to meditate each day. But we always have time to watch TV. We always have time to go shopping. We always have time to get a snack from the refrigerator. Why is it that the twenty-four hours run out when it is time to meditate? When we understand the value and effect of spiritual practice, it will become a high priority in our life, and when something is important, we find time for it. It's good to set up a daily meditation practice of fifteen, thirty, or sixty minutes in the morning. To do that, we may have to sacrifice fifteen or thirty minutes of television the previous evening in order to go to bed a little earlier. But compared to the benefit of practicing the Dharma, missing a little TV is not a big thing. In the same way that we always find time to eat because food nourishes our body, we will find time to meditate and recite prayers because they nourish us spiritually. When we respect ourselves spiritually, we respect ourselves as human beings. Nourishing ourselves spiritually then becomes a very important priority, and having time for it is easy.
~ Ven. Thubten Chodron, Taming the Mind
Please don't be a dumb meditator, a thought-wiper trying not to think, falling into the extreme of trying not to do anything in life. This is quietism, not the wisdom of the Middle Way. This is much too simple minded. It is important to learn how to meditate, not to just do it without guidance or direction. That would be like throwing stones in the dark and hoping to hit a target. Learning and practice have to go hand in hand, or you'll find it as difficult as trying to climb a mountain either without legs and hands (practice) or without head and eyes (learning, guidance); for we actually need both on the spiritual journey. I mainly hope to educate people who really want to be authentic Bodhisattvas and Vajrayana practitioners and Buddhist practitioners seeking wisdom and enlightenment.
Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -- because we will always want to have something else or something more.
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.
~ Denis Waitley
An attitude of gratitude creates blessings.. Help yourself by helping others. You have the most powerful weapons on earth.. love and prayer.
Be aware of the tendency to give up too early because you have problems getting comfortable with meditation. Eventually you can get used to it or find a better sitting position. Perhaps you'll find that meditating in a chair instead fo a cross-legged position is better for you in the long run.
I think it's important that new students don't give into the 'comparing mind' syndrome of looking around and thinking everyone else is 'getting it' while you are not. In group meditation, it sometimes seems to the beginner as if everyone else looks like a Buddha while you're sitting there feeling distracted out of your mind. In fact, they may very well be distracted too; even the leader in front of you may be struggling with distraction or sleepiness. Why compare? Each of us is like a flower in God's garden, blossoming in our own time and in our own way, each in different seasons of our physical and spiritual life. Each of us has been given a special gift - just for entering. So remember, you are already a winner.
When we start to practice Buddhism, it may not be exactly what we expected. Try not to be easily swayed if it doesn't always go exactly as planned. The spiritual path is not just a straight ascending road to happiness; there are many bumps and rises and dips in the road. Things may get more difficult before they become more coherent and tranquil. A great deal depends on what you've been ignoring in yourself. Some things inevitably must come up in order for you to know yourself and free yourself.
The spiritual path isn't always a joyride; it can be like a roller coaster. Don't stop with the cheap thrills - go for lasting fulfillment. Stick it throught the rainy days and the barren deserts and the feeling of being stuck on a plateau of development. It's often said that the brighter the light glows. the darker and deeper the shadow becomes. The shadows are always inseparable from the light. They come from the light; they are light. Constancy and perseverance pay off. Furthermore, life is much like photography: You need the negative to develop.
On the spiritual path, we are unraveling the tight strait-jacket that is the cocoon of the ego. We are threatening ego's dominion over us. It's like when we squeeze a wet bar of soap and it suddenly squirts out of our hands. Ego is a slippery fellow, intent on survival at all costs. If we don't squeeze it, it's glad to just sit there as ruler of our domain. When practice heats up, ego can become like the squeezed soap bar, and things can become a little confusing. That's when we really need to maintain the bigger perspective that is such an important part of the process. It is during these times that sangha practice, spiritual friends, and experienced teachers can be most helpful.
From "Awakening the Buddha Within" by Lama Surya Das
The spiritual journey is one of continuous learning and purification. When you know this, you become humble. There is a famous Tibetan saying: “Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation.” And Milarepa said: “Do not entertain hopes for realization, but practice all your life.”
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.
~ Buddha
Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach out children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.
~ Pablo Casals
Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future. In other words, if we’re going to be more cheerful in the future, it’s because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.
~ Pema Chodron
The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.
Most people think of enlightenment as a kind of magical attainment, a state of being close to perfection. At this level, one can perform amazing feats, see past and future lives of others, and tune in to the inner workings of the universe. This may be possible for a number of special beings, but for most of us enlightenment is much more in line with what Suzuki Roshi describes. It means having a quality of "beginningness," a fresh, simple, unsophisticated view of things. To have "beginner's mind" in how we approach things is a major teaching. In many ways, the process of enlightenment is clearing away the thoughts, beliefs, and ideas that cloud our ability to see things as they really are in their pristine form.
David A. Cooper, Silence, Simplicity and Solitude
For a true spiritual transformation to flourish, we must see beyond [the] tendency to mental self-flagellation. Spirituality based on self-hatred can never sustain itself. Generosity coming from self-hatred becomes martyrdom. Morality born of self-hatred becomes rigid repression. Love for others without the foundation of love for ourselves becomes a loss of boundaries, codependency, and a painful and fruitless search for intimacy. But when we contact, through meditation, our true nature, we can allow others to also find theirs.
Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
One finds that no matter how sincere one's intention to be attentive and aware, the mind rebels against such instructions and races off to indulge in all manner of distractions, memories and fantasies...The comforting illusion of personal coherence and continuity is ripped away to expose only fragmentary islands of consciousness separated by yawning gulfs of awareness...The first step in this practice of mindful awareness is radical self-acceptance.
Such self-acceptance, however, does not operate in an ethical vaccuum, where no moral assessment is made of one's emotional states. The training in mindful awareness is part of a Buddhist path with values and goals. Emotional states are evaluated according to whether they increase or decrease the potential for suffering. If an emotion, such as hatred or envy, is judged to be destructive then it is simply recognized as such. It is neither expressed through violent thoughts, words or deeds, nor is it suppressed or denied as incompatible with a "spiritual" life. In seeing it for what it is - a transient emotional state - one mindfully observes it follow its own nature: to arise, abide for a whie, and then pass away.
Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
-- Albert Schweitzer
Be assured that if you knew all, you would pardon all. -- Thomas A. Kempis
There is so much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us that it doesn't behoove any of us to talk about the rest of us.
-- Unknown
With a little time, and a little more insight, we begin to see both ourselves and our enemies in humbler profiles. We are not really as innocent as we felt when we were first hurt. And we do not usually have a gigantic monster to forgive; we have a weak, needy, and somewhat stupid human being. When you see your enemy and yourself in the weakness and silliness of the humanity you share, you will make the miracle of forgiving a little easier.
-- Lewis B. Smedes
The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands.
Ethel Barrymore: “You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself.”
Greenville Kleisser: “Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keep friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment.”
Dr. Seuss: “I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells.”
From wisdomquotes topics humor - it's one HUGE site
True silence really means going deep within yourself to that place where nothing is happening, where you transcend time and space. You go into a brand new dimension of nothingness. That's where all the power is. That's your real home. That's where you really belong, in deep Silence where there is no good or bad, no one trying to achieve anything. Just being, pure being. . . . Silence is the ultimate reality.
~ Robert Adams
I am compassionate. I allow my heart and imagination to embrace the difficulties and concerns of others. While maintaining my own balance, I find it within myself to extend sympathy, attention, and support. When they are grieved, I listen with openness and gentle strength. I offer loyalty, friendship, and human understanding. Without undermining or enabling, I aid and assist others to find their strength. I allow the healing power of the Universe to flow through me, soothing the hearts and feelings of those I encounter.
~ Julia Cameron
Spiritual energy brings compassion into the real world. With compassion, we see benevolently our own human condition and the condition of our fellow beings. We drop prejudice. We withhold judgment.
~ Christina Baldwin
Genuine compassion is based on the recognition that others have the right to happiness just like yourself, and therefore even your enemy is a human being with the same wish for happiness as you, and the same right to happiness as you. A sense of concern developed on this basis is what we call compassion; it extends to everyone, irrespective of whether the person's attitude toward you is hostile or friendly.
“People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”
"Never waste time and energy wishing you were somewhere else, doing something else. Accept your situation and realize that you are where you are doing what you are doing for a very specific reason. Realise that nothing is by chance, that you have certain lessons to learn, and that the situation you are in has been given to you to enable you to learn those lessons as quickly as possible, so that you can move onward and upward along this spiritual path."
-- Eileen Caddy
"When we experience the pain of another person, we instinctively want to take away that pain. But by taking away the other person’s pain, we also take away his or her opportunity to grow. To be truly compassionate, we must be able to share another person’s suffering and pain - knowing there is nothing we can do to relieve it and that we are not responsible for it, and yet knowing and understanding what that pain feels like."
--John Gray
"Remember, most of the things you think you need are ego trips designed to bolster your image and your perception of security... You'll waste a lot of energy satisfying your ego only to find that, as soon as it's got what it wants, it ignores all your efforts and promptly nails another list of demands to your forehead. The ego will always try to force you to slave for its vision. I wouldn't stand for that BS if I were you."
-- Stuart Wilde
"Almost every ego contains at least an element of what we might call “victim identity”. Some people have such a strong victim image of themselves that it becomes a central core of their ego. Resentment and grievances form an essential part of their sense of self…. Even if your grievances are completely “justified,” you have constructed an identity for yourself that is much like a prison whose bars are made of thought forms. See what you are doing to yourself, or rather what your mind is doing to you. Feel the emotional attachment you have to your victim story and become aware of the compulsion to think or talk about it. Be there as the witnessing presence of your inner state. You don’t have to do anything. With awareness comes transformation and freedom."
Some people think that Buddhist practice and meditation are about stopping thoughts. As the saying goes, if that were true, a coconut would be enlightened..... Let's remember that upon attaining enlightenment the Buddha smiled. This is very important. He didn't have to smile. He could have grimaced or remained neutral, but he smiled..... After reading Milarepa 25 times I had the insight that Mila was in fact a comedian.
~ Prof Robert Thurman, talking in Cleveland
Morality as taught by way of rules is extremely powerful and valuable in the development of practice. It must be remembered first that it, like all the techniques in meditation, is merely a tool to enable one to eventually get to that place of unselfishness where morality and wisdom flow naturally. In the West, there's a myth that freedom means free expression - that to follow all desires wherever they take one is true freedom. In fact, as one observes the mind, one sees that following desires, attractions, repulsions is not at all freedom, but is a kind of bondage. A mind filled with desires and grasping inevitably entails great suffering. Freedom is not to be gained through the ability to perform certain external actions. True freedom is an inward state of being. Once it is attained, no situation in the world can bind one or limit one's freedom. It is in this context that we must understand moral precepts and moral rules.
~ Jack Kornfield, Living Dharma
Cultivating the mind is very much like cultivating a crop. A farmer must know the proper way to prepare the soil, sow the seed, tend to the growth of the crop, and finally harvest it. If all these tasks are done properly, the farmer will reap the best harvest that nature allows. If they're done improperly, an inferior harvest will be produced, regardless of the farmer's hopes and anxieties.
Similarly, in terms of meditation it is crucial to be thoroughly versed in the proper method of our chosen technique. While engaged in the practice, we must frequently check up to see whether we are implementing the instructions we have heard and conceptually understood. Like a good crop, good meditation cannot be forced, and requires cultivation over time.
~ B. Allan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism fron the Ground Up
Again and again we need to appreciate the subtle workings of the teachings and the practice, and even when there is no extraordinary, dramatic change, to persevere with calm and patience. How important it is to be skillful and gentle with ourselves, without becoming disheartened or giving up, but trusting the spiritual path and knowing that it has its own laws and its own dynamics.
“You might be tempted to avoid the messiness of daily living for the tranquility of stillness and peacefulness. This of course would be an attachment to stillness, and like any strong attachment, it leads to delusion. It arrests development and short-circuits the cultivation of wisdom.”
From that random quotes site - I searched 4 happiness quotes -
The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.
~ Epictetus
Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route.
~ Albert Camus
One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.
~ William Feather
Not sure I TOTALLY agree with that one?
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.
~ Bertrand Russell
How about one from the Buddha -
Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.
“The habit of ignoring our present moments in favor of others yet to come leads directly to a pervasive lack of awareness of the web of life in which we are embedded. This includes a lack of awareness and understanding of our own mind and how it influences our perceptions and our actions. It severely limits our perspective on what it means to be a person and how we are connected to each other and the world around us. Religion has traditionally been the domain of such fundamental inquiries within a spiritual framework, but mindfulness has little to do with religion, except in the most fundamental meaning of the word, as an attempt to appreciate the deep mystery of being alive and to acknowledge being vitally connected to all that exists.”
"When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people."
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom."
~ Theodore Rubin
"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
~ Dalai Lama
As we deepen our sense of ease with ourselves, the fundamental wounding to our self-identity will soften. This softening leads to a greater inner space that can more naturally respond to others. While we are caught in our wounded self-preoccupations, we have no space for others. An inner atmosphere of compassion and acceptance slowly softens the rigidity of our wounding. As we become less selfpreoccupied we begin to find a capacity to respond to others, and we may discover that we are able to be present, compassionate, and caring without judging. Our compassion grows as we allow others to be who they are with their faults and struggles, their unique qualities and gifts. ~ Rob Preece, The Wisdom of Imperfection
Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us. Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion...is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception.
Thich Nhat Hanh ~ Short Quotes on Love and Compassion
When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.
Training is needed in order to love properly; and to be able to give happiness and joy, you must practice DEEP LOOKING directed toward the other person you love. Because if you do not understand this person, you cannot love properly. Understanding is the essence of love. If you cannot understand, you cannot love. That is the message of the Buddha. [True Love. A Practice for Awakening the Heart.]
Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself- if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself- it is very difficult to take care of another person. In the Buddhist teaching, it’s clear that to love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice. [Shambhala Sun March 2006 ]
The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other. We “go inside” their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the subject of our observation. When we are in contact with another’s suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means, literally, “to suffer with.”
"Whenever you try to exert control over the natural ebb and flow of life, you end up either frustrated or disappointed- because it can't be controlled. Whenever you apply effort to trying to relax and slow down, you produce the opposite effect. Whenever you try to dictate the outcome of your meditation you negate its most wondrous benefit- the pleasure of simply being."
We could say that meditation doesn’t have a reason or doesn’t have a purpose. In this respect it’s unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don’t do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.
Nothing can match the strength of those whose lives have been shaped and forged through challenging and overcoming hardships. Such people fear nothing. The purpose of our Buddhist practice is to develop such strength and fortitude. To cultivate such an invincible core is in itself a victory. It is also the greatest benefit. Those who can succeed in this endeavor will savor unsurpassed happiness; they can manifest the supreme state of Buddhahood.
~ Diasaku Ikeda
Zen mind is not Zen mind. That is, if you are attached to Zen mind, then you have a problem, and your way is very narrow.
Throwing away Zen mind is correct Zen mind.
Only keep the question, "What is the best way of helping other people?"
~ Seung Sahn (Essential Zen)
The purpose of a fishtrap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.
~ Chuang-Tsu
So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task,is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one's self from one's surroundings. When that is done successfully, then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind produces right values,right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.
~ Robert M. Pirsig
If you put your conditioned intellect to rest for a long time, suddenly it will be like the bottom fallin out of a bucket -- then you will naturally be happy and at peace.
~ Yaunwu
This sounds an extraordinary statement to make, but in fact all truth is very ordinary. It is peoples' fantasies of what is true that is so extraordinary. That that we were born and that we face eternal extinction after death is an extraordinary fantasy.
~ Brian Perkins
To get rid of your passions is not Nirvana; to look upon them as no matter of yours, that is nirvana.
~ Anonymous
If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
"Changing your negative beliefs is the first step in the transformation process that will really make a difference in your life."
~ Anita Foley
"It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action."
~ Lin Yutang
"If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun or relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it."
~ Herodotus
"Relaxation means releasing all concern and tension and letting the natural order of life flow through one's being."
~ Donald Curtis
Acquire the courage to believe in yourself. Many of the things that you have been taught were at one time the radical ideas of individuals who had the courage to believe what their own hearts and minds told them was true, rather than accept the common beliefs of their day.
~ Ching Ning Chu
Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don't accept praise or gain or anything else. If you let go a little you will have a little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if you let go completely you will have complete peace.
~Ajahn Chah
Love expects no reward. Love knows no fear. Love Divine gives - does not demand. Love thinks no evil; imputes no motive. To Love is to share and serve.
~Sivananda
If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
~ Longfellow
Do not keep the alabaster box of your friendship sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier. The kind of things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go.
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can be achieved only through persistent exercise of real love.
~ M. Scott Peck
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
~ Albert Einstein
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."
~ Carl Jung
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
~ Thomas Merton
"The best way to cleanse the heart and prepare for the stilling of the mind is to lead a normal, worldly life. Living in the midst of your day-to-day duties, responsibilities, likes, dislikes, etc., will help you. All these become the very means for the purification of your heart."
~ Meher Baba
When one realizes oneself, one realizes the essential nature of the universe. The existence of duality is only an illusion and when the illusion is undone, the primordial unity of one's own nature and the nature of the universe is realized, or made real.
~ Namkhai Norbu
When we learn to move beyond mistaken concepts and see clearly, we no longer solidify reality. We see waves coming and going, arising and passing. We see that life, composed of this mind and body, is in a state of continual, constant transformation and flux. There is always the possibility of radical change. Every moment - not just poetically or figuratively, but literally - every moment we are dying and being reborn, we and all of life.
From: 'Loving-Kindness - The Revolutionary Art of Happiness', Sharon Salzberg
The real glory of meditation lies not in any method but in its continual living experience of presence, in its bliss, clarity, peace, and most important of all, complete absence of grasping. The diminishing of grasping in yourself is a sign that you are becoming freer of yourself. And the more you experience this freedom, the clearer the sign that the ego and the hopes and fears that keep it alive are dissolving, and the closer you will come to the infinitely generous "wisdom of egolessness." When you live in the wisdom home, you'll no longer find a barrier between "I" and "you," "this" and "that," "inside" and "outside;" you'll have come, finally, to your true home, the state of non-duality.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
The light of consciousness passes through the film of memory and throws pictures on your brain. Because of the deficient and disordered state of your brain, what you perceive is distorted and colored by feelings of like and dislike. Make your thinking orderly and free from emotional overtones, and you will see people and things as they are, with clarity and charity.
~ Sri Nisargadatta Mahar
If you want to cut directly through, don't entertain doubts about Buddhas, or doubts about life and death - just always let go and make your heart empty and open.
When things come up, deal with them according to the occasion. Be like the stillness of water, like the clarity of a mirror. Whether good or bad, beautiful or ugly approach, you don't make the slightest move to avoid them. Then you will truly know that the mindless world of spontaneity is inconceivable.
~ Ta Hui
It is as if a raindrop fell from heaven into a stream or fountain and became one with the water in it so that never again can the raindrop be separated from the water of the stream; or as if a little brook ran into the sea and there was thenceforward no means of distinguishing its water from the ocean; or as if a brilliant light came into a room through two windows and though it comes in divided between them, it forms a single light inside.
"If we really want to love, we must learn how 2 forgive."
~ Mother Teresa
"When I am able to resist the temptation to judge others, I can see them as teachers of forgiveness in my life, reminding me that I can only have peace of mind when I forgive rather than judge."
~ Gerald Jampolsky
"Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude."
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
Worth plugggin those into your favourite search enginees ...
"Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity."
~ Buddha
"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."
~ Leo Buscaglia
"I feel that the essence of spiritual practice is your attitude toward others. When you have a pure, sincere motivation, then you have right attitude toward others based on kindness, compassion, love and respect."
~ Dalai Lama
"The positive effect of kindness on the immune system and on the increased production of serotonin in the brain has been proven in research studies. Serotonin is a naturally occurring substance in the body that makes us feel more comfortable, peaceful, and even blissful. In fact, the role of most anti-depressants is to stimulate the production of serotonin chemically, helping to ease depression. Research has shown that a simple act of kindness directed toward another improves the functioning of the immune system and stimulates the production of serotonin in both the recipient of the kindness and the person extending the kindness. Even more amazing is that persons observing the act of kindness have similar beneficial results. Imagine this! Kindness extended, received, or observed beneficially impacts the physical health and feelings of everyone involved!"
Often we see other sentient beings as hassles: "This mosquito is disturbing me. Those politicians are corrupt. Why can't my colleagues do their work correctly?" and so on. But when we see sentient beings as being more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel, our perspective completely changes. For example, when we look at a fly buzzing around, we train ourselves to think, "My enlightenment depends on that fly." This isn't fanciful thinking because, in fact, our enlightenment does depend on that fly. If that fly isn't included in our bodhicitta, then we don't have bodhicitta, and we won't receive the wonderful results of generating bodhicitta--the tremendous purification and creation of positive potential.
Imagine training your mind so that when you look at every single living being, you think, "My enlightenment depends on that being. The drunk who just got on the bus--my enlightenment depends on him. The soldier in Iraq--my enlightenment depends on him. My brothers and sisters, the teller at the bank, the janitor at my workplace, the president of the United States, the suicide bombers in the Middle East, the slug in my garden, my eighth-grade boyfriend, the babysitter when I was a kid--my enlightenment depends on each of them." All sentient beings are actually that precious to us.
~ Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron from 'Cultivating a Compassionate Heart: The Yoga Method of Chenrezig'
The practice of compassion begins at home. We have our parents, our children, and our brothers and sisters, who perhaps irritate us the most, and we begin our practice of loving-kindness and compassion with them. Then gradually we extend our compassion out into our greater community, our country, neighbouring countries, the world, and finally to all sentient beings equally without exception.
Extending compassion in this way makes it evident that it is not very easy to instantly have compassion for "all sentient beings." Theoretically it may be comfortable to have compassion for "all sentient beings," but through our practice we realize that "all sentient beings" is a collection of individuals. When we actually try to generate compassion for each and every individual, it becomes much more challenging. But if we cannot work with one individual, then how can we work with all sentient beings? Therefore it is important for us to reflect more practically, to work with compassion for individuals and then extend that compassion further.
~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Trainings in Compassion
Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us. Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion...is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception.
~ Quoted by Sharon Salzberg in Compassion, the Supreme Emotion
Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity. Pity has its roots in fear and carries a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of “I’m glad it’s not me.” As Stephen Levine says: “When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion.” To train in compassion is to know that all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honor all those who suffer, and to know that you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone.
"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves."
~ Victor Hugo
"It is essential that our love be liberating, not possessive. We must at all times give those we love the freedom to be themselves. Love affirms the other as other. It does not possess and manipulate another as mine. To love is to liberate. Love and friendship must empower those we love to become their best selves, according to their own lights and visions."
~ John Powell
"Love is the great transformer, turning ambition into aspiration, selfishness into service, greed into gratitude, getting into giving and demands into dedication."
Comments
TRIED pasting from this page and couldn't seem 2 do it ... some great quotes -
livelifehappy live life quotes
Enjoy!
~ Susan Gale
~ Hubert Humprey
Worth pluggin into Google
May all beings be healed and whole
May all have whatever they want and need
May all be protected from harm, and free from fear
May all beings enjoy inner peace and ease
May all be awakened, liberated and free
May there be peace in this world,
and throughout the entire universe.
The Buddha himself said that if you repeatedly practice this meditation and recitation - with a forgiving, loving heart, while relinquishing judgement, anger and prejudice - great benefits will definitely ensue: You will sleep easily, wake easily, and have pleasant dreams; people will love you; celestial beings will love you and protect you; weapons, poisons, fire and other external dangers will not harm you; your face will be radiant and your mind concentrated and serene; and you will die unconfused and be reborn in happy realms.
From "Awakening the Buddha Within" by Lama Surya Das
I highly recommend it!
~ Henry Ward Beecher
From joy of quotes happiness
Perhaps you sometimes feel a homesickness, a sadness and a sense that something is terribly wrong. You might experience this as a yearning for something that is lost, something that seems so familiar and yet so distant. You might feel hungry and needy and aware that nothing has been able to fully satisfy you - at least not for very long. It's like drinking salt water while floating adrift on the great ocean; it's a drink that can't possibly alleviate your thirst.
Rejoice! You are living the core issues grappled with by every consciously alive human being. This is no small thing - this is 'The Big Time', the Great Way walked by all those who have awakened to freedom, peace and enlightenment. You're in the heavyweight division, wrestling with the multi-dimensional angels of life. You want to see them, you want to understand them, and - like Jacob - you want to be blessed by them.
From "Awakening the Buddha Within" by Lama Surya Das
Let precious bodhicitta be your organising principle. Help, and do not harm others. Cultivate these remembrances in everything you do: be gentle, be kind, be thoughtful, be caring, be compassionate, be loving, be fair, be reasonable, be generous to everyone - including yourself.
It really is possible to love everyone - even if you don't always like everyone. I had to personally learn this lesson when for several years I was privileged to wear a monk's robe and have a shaved head in cloistered retreats. At first it felt to me as though I was in a no-exit, arranged marriage with an internationa group of strangers. But eventually one couldn't escape the fact that we all pretty much wanted and needed the same things - that we're all on the same team, the same side on the spiritual battlefield.
I've also learned that you don't alway get to pick the people with whom you travel the journey. You might sometimes think you do, but don't be deceived. And the corollary of that - and this was my lesson - is that you start to realise that you can love even the people you don't like and must love and help everybody
I HIGHLY recommend it ...
~ Sibbes
"Joy is you at the deepest level, and your joy is one with the infinite timeless joy of this unbound universe."
~ Robert Ellwood
"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves."
~ Guatama Buddha
"Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief."
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
Come from joy4u joy quotes
Dhamma is in your mind, not in the forest. Don't believe others. Just listen to your mind. You don't have to go and look anywhere else. Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one.
~ Ajahn Chah
Sometimes it is difficult to find time to meditate each day. But we always have time to watch TV. We always have time to go shopping. We always have time to get a snack from the refrigerator. Why is it that the twenty-four hours run out when it is time to meditate? When we understand the value and effect of spiritual practice, it will become a high priority in our life, and when something is important, we find time for it. It's good to set up a daily meditation practice of fifteen, thirty, or sixty minutes in the morning. To do that, we may have to sacrifice fifteen or thirty minutes of television the previous evening in order to go to bed a little earlier. But compared to the benefit of practicing the Dharma, missing a little TV is not a big thing. In the same way that we always find time to eat because food nourishes our body, we will find time to meditate and recite prayers because they nourish us spiritually. When we respect ourselves spiritually, we respect ourselves as human beings. Nourishing ourselves spiritually then becomes a very important priority, and having time for it is easy.
~ Ven. Thubten Chodron, Taming the Mind
Please don't be a dumb meditator, a thought-wiper trying not to think, falling into the extreme of trying not to do anything in life. This is quietism, not the wisdom of the Middle Way. This is much too simple minded. It is important to learn how to meditate, not to just do it without guidance or direction. That would be like throwing stones in the dark and hoping to hit a target. Learning and practice have to go hand in hand, or you'll find it as difficult as trying to climb a mountain either without legs and hands (practice) or without head and eyes (learning, guidance); for we actually need both on the spiritual journey. I mainly hope to educate people who really want to be authentic Bodhisattvas and Vajrayana practitioners and Buddhist practitioners seeking wisdom and enlightenment.
~ HH the 12th Gyalwang Drukpa
From the viewonbuddhism site
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.
~ Denis Waitley
An attitude of gratitude creates blessings.. Help yourself by helping others. You have the most powerful weapons on earth.. love and prayer.
~ John Templeton
Come from zentactics gratitude quotes
Enjoy!
Be aware of the tendency to give up too early because you have problems getting comfortable with meditation. Eventually you can get used to it or find a better sitting position. Perhaps you'll find that meditating in a chair instead fo a cross-legged position is better for you in the long run.
I think it's important that new students don't give into the 'comparing mind' syndrome of looking around and thinking everyone else is 'getting it' while you are not. In group meditation, it sometimes seems to the beginner as if everyone else looks like a Buddha while you're sitting there feeling distracted out of your mind. In fact, they may very well be distracted too; even the leader in front of you may be struggling with distraction or sleepiness. Why compare? Each of us is like a flower in God's garden, blossoming in our own time and in our own way, each in different seasons of our physical and spiritual life. Each of us has been given a special gift - just for entering. So remember, you are already a winner.
When we start to practice Buddhism, it may not be exactly what we expected. Try not to be easily swayed if it doesn't always go exactly as planned. The spiritual path is not just a straight ascending road to happiness; there are many bumps and rises and dips in the road. Things may get more difficult before they become more coherent and tranquil. A great deal depends on what you've been ignoring in yourself. Some things inevitably must come up in order for you to know yourself and free yourself.
The spiritual path isn't always a joyride; it can be like a roller coaster. Don't stop with the cheap thrills - go for lasting fulfillment. Stick it throught the rainy days and the barren deserts and the feeling of being stuck on a plateau of development. It's often said that the brighter the light glows. the darker and deeper the shadow becomes. The shadows are always inseparable from the light. They come from the light; they are light. Constancy and perseverance pay off. Furthermore, life is much like photography: You need the negative to develop.
On the spiritual path, we are unraveling the tight strait-jacket that is the cocoon of the ego. We are threatening ego's dominion over us. It's like when we squeeze a wet bar of soap and it suddenly squirts out of our hands. Ego is a slippery fellow, intent on survival at all costs. If we don't squeeze it, it's glad to just sit there as ruler of our domain. When practice heats up, ego can become like the squeezed soap bar, and things can become a little confusing. That's when we really need to maintain the bigger perspective that is such an important part of the process. It is during these times that sangha practice, spiritual friends, and experienced teachers can be most helpful.
From "Awakening the Buddha Within" by Lama Surya Das
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
~ Buddha
Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach out children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.
~ Pablo Casals
Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future. In other words, if we’re going to be more cheerful in the future, it’s because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.
~ Pema Chodron
The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Come from joyofquotes present moment quotes
Most people think of enlightenment as a kind of magical attainment, a state of being close to perfection. At this level, one can perform amazing feats, see past and future lives of others, and tune in to the inner workings of the universe. This may be possible for a number of special beings, but for most of us enlightenment is much more in line with what Suzuki Roshi describes. It means having a quality of "beginningness," a fresh, simple, unsophisticated view of things. To have "beginner's mind" in how we approach things is a major teaching. In many ways, the process of enlightenment is clearing away the thoughts, beliefs, and ideas that cloud our ability to see things as they really are in their pristine form.
David A. Cooper, Silence, Simplicity and Solitude
For a true spiritual transformation to flourish, we must see beyond [the] tendency to mental self-flagellation. Spirituality based on self-hatred can never sustain itself. Generosity coming from self-hatred becomes martyrdom. Morality born of self-hatred becomes rigid repression. Love for others without the foundation of love for ourselves becomes a loss of boundaries, codependency, and a painful and fruitless search for intimacy. But when we contact, through meditation, our true nature, we can allow others to also find theirs.
Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
One finds that no matter how sincere one's intention to be attentive and aware, the mind rebels against such instructions and races off to indulge in all manner of distractions, memories and fantasies...The comforting illusion of personal coherence and continuity is ripped away to expose only fragmentary islands of consciousness separated by yawning gulfs of awareness...The first step in this practice of mindful awareness is radical self-acceptance.
Such self-acceptance, however, does not operate in an ethical vaccuum, where no moral assessment is made of one's emotional states. The training in mindful awareness is part of a Buddhist path with values and goals. Emotional states are evaluated according to whether they increase or decrease the potential for suffering. If an emotion, such as hatred or envy, is judged to be destructive then it is simply recognized as such. It is neither expressed through violent thoughts, words or deeds, nor is it suppressed or denied as incompatible with a "spiritual" life. In seeing it for what it is - a transient emotional state - one mindfully observes it follow its own nature: to arise, abide for a whie, and then pass away.
Stephen Batchelor, The Awakening of the West
Have aa good one!
~ Napoleon Hill
-- Albert Schweitzer
Be assured that if you knew all, you would pardon all.
-- Thomas A. Kempis
There is so much bad in the best of us
and so much good in the worst of us
that it doesn't behoove any of us
to talk about the rest of us.
-- Unknown
With a little time, and a little more insight, we begin to see both ourselves and our enemies in humbler profiles. We are not really as innocent as we felt when we were first hurt. And we do not usually have a gigantic monster to forgive; we have a weak, needy, and somewhat stupid human being. When you see your enemy and yourself in the weakness and silliness of the humanity you share, you will make the miracle of forgiving a little easier.
-- Lewis B. Smedes
The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands.
-- Arthur H. Stainback
Greenville Kleisser: “Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keep friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment.”
Dr. Seuss: “I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells.”
From wisdomquotes topics humor - it's one HUGE site
where nothing is happening, where you transcend time and space.
You go into a brand new dimension of nothingness. That's where
all the power is. That's your real home. That's where you really
belong, in deep Silence where there is no good or bad, no one
trying to achieve anything. Just being, pure being. . . . Silence is the ultimate reality.
~ Robert Adams
I am compassionate. I allow my heart and imagination to embrace the difficulties
and concerns of others. While maintaining my own balance, I find it within myself
to extend sympathy, attention, and support. When they are grieved, I listen with
openness and gentle strength. I offer loyalty, friendship, and human understanding.
Without undermining or enabling, I aid and assist others to find their strength.
I allow the healing power of the Universe to flow through me,
soothing the hearts and feelings of those I encounter.
~ Julia Cameron
Spiritual energy brings compassion into the real world. With compassion,
we see benevolently our own human condition and the condition
of our fellow beings. We drop prejudice. We withhold judgment.
~ Christina Baldwin
Genuine compassion is based on the recognition that others have the right to happiness just like yourself, and therefore even your enemy is a human being with the same wish for happiness as you, and the same right to happiness as you. A sense of concern developed on this basis is what we call compassion; it extends to everyone, irrespective of whether the person's attitude toward you is hostile or friendly.
~ the Dalai Lama
From www.livinglifefully.com
― Lemony Snicket
From www.goodreads.com
Joseph Addison
~Thomas à Kempis
quotegarden wise words
-- Eileen Caddy
"When we experience the pain of another person, we instinctively want to take away that pain. But by taking away the other person’s pain, we also take away his or her opportunity to grow. To be truly compassionate, we must be able to share another person’s suffering and pain - knowing there is nothing we can do to relieve it and that we are not responsible for it, and yet knowing and understanding what that pain feels like."
--John Gray
"Remember, most of the things you think you need are ego trips designed to bolster your image and your perception of security... You'll waste a lot of energy satisfying your ego only to find that, as soon as it's got what it wants, it ignores all your efforts and promptly nails another list of demands to your forehead. The ego will always try to force you to slave for its vision. I wouldn't stand for that BS if I were you."
-- Stuart Wilde
"Almost every ego contains at least an element of what we might call “victim identity”. Some people have such a strong victim image of themselves that it becomes a central core of their ego. Resentment and grievances form an essential part of their sense of self…. Even if your grievances are completely “justified,” you have constructed an identity for yourself that is much like a prison whose bars are made of thought forms. See what you are doing to yourself, or rather what your mind is doing to you. Feel the emotional attachment you have to your victim story and become aware of the compulsion to think or talk about it. Be there as the witnessing presence of your inner state. You don’t have to do anything. With awareness comes transformation and freedom."
-- Eckhart Tolle
~ Prof Robert Thurman, talking in Cleveland
Morality as taught by way of rules is extremely powerful and valuable in the development of practice. It must be remembered first that it, like all the techniques in meditation, is merely a tool to enable one to eventually get to that place of unselfishness where morality and wisdom flow naturally. In the West, there's a myth that freedom means free expression - that to follow all desires wherever they take one is true freedom. In fact, as one observes the mind, one sees that following desires, attractions, repulsions is not at all freedom, but is a kind of bondage. A mind filled with desires and grasping inevitably entails great suffering. Freedom is not to be gained through the ability to perform certain external actions. True freedom is an inward state of being. Once it is attained, no situation in the world can bind one or limit one's freedom. It is in this context that we must understand moral precepts and moral rules.
~ Jack Kornfield, Living Dharma
Cultivating the mind is very much like cultivating a crop. A farmer must know the proper way to prepare the soil, sow the seed, tend to the growth of the crop, and finally harvest it. If all these tasks are done properly, the farmer will reap the best harvest that nature allows. If they're done improperly, an inferior harvest will be produced, regardless of the farmer's hopes and anxieties.
Similarly, in terms of meditation it is crucial to be thoroughly versed in the proper method of our chosen technique. While engaged in the practice, we must frequently check up to see whether we are implementing the instructions we have heard and conceptually understood. Like a good crop, good meditation cannot be forced, and requires cultivation over time.
~ B. Allan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism fron the Ground Up
~ Albert Schweitzer
"There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate."
~ Robert Frost
"One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion."
~ Simone de Beauvoir
From creativequotations compassion - one HUGE site!
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
~ Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are
Worth pluggin into Google
Glad 2 be of service.
http://www.randomquotes.org/author/286-buddha.html
Also try searchin 4 Gibran & see what happens ...
Enjoy!
~ Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory
http://tinyurl.com/2yk3z9
The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.
~ Epictetus
Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route.
~ Albert Camus
One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.
~ William Feather
Not sure I TOTALLY agree with that one?
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.
~ Bertrand Russell
How about one from the Buddha -
Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.
Worth pluggin some of those into google ...
~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom."
~ Theodore Rubin
"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
~ Dalai Lama
As we deepen our sense of ease with ourselves, the fundamental wounding to our self-identity will soften. This softening leads to a greater inner space that can more naturally respond to others. While we are caught in our wounded self-preoccupations, we have no space for others. An inner atmosphere of compassion and acceptance slowly softens the rigidity of our wounding. As we become less selfpreoccupied we begin to find a capacity to respond to others, and we may discover that we are able to be present, compassionate, and caring without judging. Our compassion grows as we allow others to be who they are with their faults and struggles, their unique qualities and gifts.
~ Rob Preece, The Wisdom of Imperfection
Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us. Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion...is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception.
~ Sharon Salzberg, from 'Loving-kindness'
For more on this theme ... try this link -
http://tinyurl.com/7fobyfo
Have a good one!
When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.
Training is needed in order to love properly; and to be able to give happiness and joy, you must practice DEEP LOOKING directed toward the other person you love. Because if you do not understand this person, you cannot love properly. Understanding is the essence of love. If you cannot understand, you cannot love. That is the message of the Buddha.
[True Love. A Practice for Awakening the Heart.]
Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself- if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself- it is very difficult to take care of another person. In the Buddhist teaching, it’s clear that to love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice.
[Shambhala Sun March 2006 ]
The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other. We “go inside” their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the subject of our observation. When we are in contact with another’s suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means, literally, “to suffer with.”
Cheers
~ Paul Wilson The Quiet
Plenty more here -
http://www.learning-modern-meditation.com/meditation-quotes.html
Also has a page of Buddhist quotes
Enjoy!
~ Alan Watts
~ Diasaku Ikeda
Zen mind is not Zen mind. That is, if you are attached to Zen mind, then you have a problem, and your way is very narrow.
Throwing away Zen mind is correct Zen mind.
Only keep the question, "What is the best way of helping other people?"
~ Seung Sahn (Essential Zen)
The purpose of a fishtrap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.
~ Chuang-Tsu
So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task,is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one's self from one's surroundings. When that is done successfully, then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind produces right values,right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.
~ Robert M. Pirsig
If you put your conditioned intellect to rest for a long time, suddenly it will be like the bottom fallin out of a bucket -- then you will naturally be happy and at peace.
~ Yaunwu
This sounds an extraordinary statement to make, but in fact all truth is very ordinary. It is peoples' fantasies of what is true that is so extraordinary. That that we were born and that we face eternal extinction after death is an extraordinary fantasy.
~ Brian Perkins
To get rid of your passions is not Nirvana; to look upon them as no matter of yours, that is nirvana.
~ Anonymous
If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
~ Dogen Zenji
Worth pluggin a few into Google
~ Anita Foley
"It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action."
~ Lin Yutang
"If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun or relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it."
~ Herodotus
"Relaxation means releasing all concern and tension and letting the natural order of life flow through one's being."
~ Donald Curtis
Acquire the courage to believe in yourself. Many of the things that you have been taught were at one time the radical ideas of individuals who had the courage to believe what their own hearts and minds told them was true, rather than accept the common beliefs of their day.
~ Ching Ning Chu
Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don't accept praise or gain or anything else. If you let go a little you will have a little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if you let go completely you will have complete peace.
~Ajahn Chah
Love expects no reward. Love knows no fear. Love Divine
gives - does not demand. Love thinks no evil; imputes no
motive. To Love is to share and serve.
~Sivananda
If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
~ Longfellow
Do not keep the alabaster box of your friendship sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier. The kind of things you
mean to say when they are gone, say before they go.
~George W. Childs
Most came from this site -
http://allspirit.co.uk/quotations.html
Enjoy!
the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the
last test and proof, the work for which all other work
is but preparation.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face
to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally
getting bewildered as to which may be true.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can
be achieved only through persistent exercise of real love.
~ M. Scott Peck
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful
servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has
forgotten the gift.
~ Albert Einstein
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding
of ourselves."
~ Carl Jung
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves,
and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only
the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
~ Thomas Merton
"The best way to cleanse the heart and prepare for the stilling of the
mind is to lead a normal, worldly life. Living in the midst of your
day-to-day duties, responsibilities, likes, dislikes, etc., will help you.
All these become the very means for the purification of your heart."
~ Meher Baba
When one realizes oneself, one realizes the essential nature of
the universe. The existence of duality is only an illusion and
when the illusion is undone, the primordial unity of one's own
nature and the nature of the universe is realized, or made real.
~ Namkhai Norbu
When we learn to move beyond mistaken concepts and see clearly,
we no longer solidify reality. We see waves coming and going,
arising and passing. We see that life, composed of this mind and
body, is in a state of continual, constant transformation and flux.
There is always the possibility of radical change. Every moment -
not just poetically or figuratively, but literally - every moment we
are dying and being reborn, we and all of life.
From: 'Loving-Kindness - The Revolutionary Art of Happiness', Sharon Salzberg
The real glory of meditation lies not in any method but in
its continual living experience of presence, in its bliss,
clarity, peace, and most important of all, complete absence
of grasping. The diminishing of grasping in yourself is a sign
that you are becoming freer of yourself. And the more you
experience this freedom, the clearer the sign that the ego
and the hopes and fears that keep it alive are dissolving, and
the closer you will come to the infinitely generous "wisdom
of egolessness." When you live in the wisdom home, you'll no
longer find a barrier between "I" and "you," "this" and "that,"
"inside" and "outside;" you'll have come, finally, to your true
home, the state of non-duality.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
The light of consciousness passes through the film of memory
and throws pictures on your brain. Because of the deficient
and disordered state of your brain, what you perceive is
distorted and colored by feelings of like and dislike. Make
your thinking orderly and free from emotional overtones,
and you will see people and things as they are, with clarity
and charity.
~ Sri Nisargadatta Mahar
If you want to cut directly through, don't entertain doubts about Buddhas, or
doubts about life and death - just always let go and make your heart empty and
open.
When things come up, deal with them according to the occasion. Be like the
stillness of water, like the clarity of a mirror. Whether good or bad, beautiful
or ugly approach, you don't make the slightest move to avoid them. Then you will
truly know that the mindless world of spontaneity is inconceivable.
~ Ta Hui
It is as if a raindrop fell from heaven into a stream or fountain
and became one with the water in it so that never again can the
raindrop be separated from the water of the stream; or as if a
little brook ran into the sea and there was thenceforward no
means of distinguishing its water from the ocean; or as if a
brilliant light came into a room through two windows and though
it comes in divided between them, it forms a single light inside.
~ St. Teresa of Avila
~ Zen proverb
~ Robert McCloskey
http://tinyurl.com/6roeodl
It's one HUGE site!
Khandro Rinpoche
This Precious Life; Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on the Path to Enlightenment
Keep em comin ...
~ Mother Teresa
"When I am able to resist the temptation to judge others, I can see them as teachers of forgiveness in my life, reminding me that I can only have peace of mind when I forgive rather than judge."
~ Gerald Jampolsky
"Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude."
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
Worth plugggin those into your favourite search enginees ...
Cheers
~ Ashleigh Brilliant
"Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity."
~ Buddha
"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."
~ Leo Buscaglia
"I feel that the essence of spiritual practice is your attitude toward others. When you have a pure, sincere motivation, then you have right attitude toward others based on kindness, compassion, love and respect."
~ Dalai Lama
"The positive effect of kindness on the immune system and on the increased production of serotonin in the brain has been proven in research studies. Serotonin is a naturally occurring substance in the body that makes us feel more comfortable, peaceful, and even blissful. In fact, the role of most anti-depressants is to stimulate the production of serotonin chemically, helping to ease depression. Research has shown that a simple act of kindness directed toward another improves the functioning of the immune system and stimulates the production of serotonin in both the recipient of the kindness and the person extending the kindness. Even more amazing is that persons observing the act of kindness have similar beneficial results. Imagine this! Kindness extended, received, or observed beneficially impacts the physical health and feelings of everyone involved!"
~ Wayne Dyer
More here -
http://www.joyofquotes.com/kindness_quotes.html
Have a good one!
Imagine training your mind so that when you look at every single living being, you think, "My enlightenment depends on that being. The drunk who just got on the bus--my enlightenment depends on him. The soldier in Iraq--my enlightenment depends on him. My brothers and sisters, the teller at the bank, the janitor at my workplace, the president of the United States, the suicide bombers in the Middle East, the slug in my garden, my eighth-grade boyfriend, the babysitter when I was a kid--my enlightenment depends on each of them." All sentient beings are actually that precious to us.
~ Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron from 'Cultivating a Compassionate Heart: The Yoga Method of Chenrezig'
The practice of compassion begins at home. We have our parents, our children, and our brothers and sisters, who perhaps irritate us the most, and we begin our practice of loving-kindness and compassion with them. Then gradually we extend our compassion out into our greater community, our country, neighbouring countries, the world, and finally to all sentient beings equally without exception.
Extending compassion in this way makes it evident that it is not very easy to instantly have compassion for "all sentient beings." Theoretically it may be comfortable to have compassion for "all sentient beings," but through our practice we realize that "all sentient beings" is a collection of individuals. When we actually try to generate compassion for each and every individual, it becomes much more challenging. But if we cannot work with one individual, then how can we work with all sentient beings? Therefore it is important for us to reflect more practically, to work with compassion for individuals and then extend that compassion further.
~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Trainings in Compassion
Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us. Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion...is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception.
~ Quoted by Sharon Salzberg in Compassion, the Supreme Emotion
Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity. Pity has its roots in fear and carries a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of “I’m glad it’s not me.” As Stephen Levine says: “When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion.” To train in compassion is to know that all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honor all those who suffer, and to know that you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Come from this fabulous collection -
http://www.viewonbuddhism.org/dharma-quotes-quotations-buddhist/index.htm
Enjoy!
~ Victor Hugo
"It is essential that our love be liberating, not possessive. We must at all times give those we love the freedom to be themselves. Love affirms the other as other. It does not possess and manipulate another as mine. To love is to liberate. Love and friendship must empower those we love to become their best selves, according to their own lights and visions."
~ John Powell
"Love is the great transformer, turning ambition into aspiration, selfishness into service, greed into gratitude, getting into giving and demands into dedication."
~ Anonymous
Came from this wonderful site -
http://www.livinglifefully.com/