Zen And The Art Of Happiness Quotes

Many people think excitement is happiness.... But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.

If you suffer and make your loved ones suffer, there is nothing that can justify your desire.

It is my conviction that there is no way to peace - peace is the way.

To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don't try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself.

To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past or responsibly plan for the future. The idea is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about the past or worries about the future. If you are firmly grounded in the present moment, the past can be an object of inquiry, the object of your mindfulness and concentration. You can attain many insights by looking into the past. But you are still grounded in the present moment.

The bad things, don't do them. The good things, try to do them. Try to purify, subdue your own mind. That is the teaching of all buddhas.

The best way for you to get that new experience is to change your response to what happens.

Your life today is the result of a series of decisions you made that have caused you to arrive where you are.

Who you allow into the circle of your life will make the difference in the quality of your life.

The Universe continues to be perfect at every moment and never permits even the first imperfect event to occur. It goes from perfect to perfect to perfect.

No Snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.

What determines each person's state of happiness or unhappiness is not the event itself, but what the event means to that person.

Dear friends, do you know that you are lucky people? You don't have any cows to lose.

In Zen, there is an old saying: The obstacle is the path. Know that a whole and happy life is not free of obstacles. Quite the contrary, a whole and happy life is riddled with obstacles-they simply become the very stepping-stones that help lift us to a new perspective. It is not what happens to us in this life that shapes us, it is how we choose to respond to what happens to us.

Laughter has got to be the single healthiest activity one can perform. Just think how healthy you would be if you could sincerely laugh at that which now oppresses you.

Well-being, or wholeness, implies integrity and harmony between all existing elements, providing freedom for the whole.

I think of the friendships I've strained, the generosity I've exploited, the bridges I've torched. Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil; with them, forgive yourself. There may be hope for me yet.

Each river is different, but they all eventually lead to the ocean. No matter what we’re doing or when, or whether it brings us happiness or remorse, gain or loss, we’re all on our individual paths to enlightenment. Even when we’ve done something we consider wrong, we’re still on our path to enlightenment.

The answers are never "out there." All the answers are "in there," inside you, waiting to be discovered.

The more you engage in any type of emotion or behavior, the greater your desire for it will become.

If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life. It’s so clear. Mindfulness is the energy and practice that helps you go back to the here and now so that you encounter life.

The teachings of the Buddha could be summarized in four short sentences. ... [The Buddha] said ... The bad things, don't do them. The good things, try to do them. Try to purify, subdue your own mind. That is the teaching of all buddhas.

Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good it is to control the mind. A controlled mind brings happiness.

The true source of happiness is within each of us.

Stress comes from the way you relate to events or situations.

You can be happy if you are willing to let go of your past and leave yourself unencumbered so you can fly freely.

If you feel depressed for an hour, you've produced approximately eighteen billion new cells that have more receptors calling out for depressed-type peptides and fewer calling out for feel-good peptides.

Happiness is impermanent, but it can be renewed. You are also impermanent and also renewable, like your breath, like your steps. You are not something permanent experiencing something impermanent. You are something impermanent experiencing something impermanent.

Again, all of life presents us with two basic ways to treat events. We can either label them "god for us" or "bad for us." The event is only an event. It's how we treat the event that determines what it becomes in our lives. The event doesn't make that determination- we do.

Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. If you don't believe something is possible, you won't even attempt it.

Your actions create an "energy vortex" that draws in the necessary ingredients for your venture.

Happiness lies even in little tiny butterflies. You just have to cpen up your eyes and see where beauty flies to beautify your world lenghtwise.

There is only one way to achieve lasting happiness. That way is simply: Be happy.

If you are lost in a forest at night, you can follow the North Star to find your way out. You follow the North Star, but your goal is to get back home; it’s not to arrive at the North Star.

Recovery through sleep isn’t going to happen if the majority of the components of your being aren’t getting enough stimulation or resistance to work against. Your brain may be tired after work, but if your body and emotions haven’t been challenged through the day, they’re going to keep irritating you even if you’re asleep. They don’t need rest; they need work for real recovery to take place.

If at some point in your life you adopt an idea or a perception as the absolute truth, you close the door of your mind. This is the end of seeking the truth. And not only do you no longer seek the truth, but even if the truth comes in person and knocks on your door, you refuse to open it. Attachment to views, attachment to ideas, attachment to perceptions are the biggest obstacle to the truth.

If you are surrounded by people who not only don't believe in your goals and your positive outlook on life, but who also continually try to tear you down, it will be extremely challenging for you to hold firmly in mind that you will succeed and that you can be happy.

This is why, to be happy [...] we need to take some time each day to sit down, look into ourselves, and identify the kind of energy that’s motivating us and where it is pushing us.

Attachment to views, attachment to ideas, attachment to perceptions are the biggest obstacle to the truth

Question everything, even the question mark, that shepherd's crook floating in the air above that small round rock If you - stubbornly - still wish to be unhappy, maybe you can grasp it.

If one follows what is in one’s heart (let’s leave out mind for the moment), one ends up with what one truly values and loves in life—and one acts accordingly. One’s own private indulgent cyclic habitual reactive subjective transitory feelings are, hopefully, not at the head of that list.

For the uncontrolled there is no wisdom, nor for the uncontrolled is there the power of concentration; and for him without concentration there is no peace. And for the unpeaceful, how can there be happiness? —BHAGAVAD GITA

Zen is a journey of exploration and a way of living that, in and of itself, does not belong to any one religion or tradition. It is about experiencing life in the here and now and about removing the dualistic distinctions between "I" and "you" between "subject" and "objective", between our spiritual and our ordinary, everyday activities.

Finding ways to protect yourself and promote your own well-being is the most basic investment you can make. [...] The foundation of your investment, the key to transforming your professional life, is mindfulness. Mindfulness is the energy of attention. It is the capacity in each of us to be present one hundred percent to what is happening within and around us. It is the miracle that allows us to become fully alive in each moment. [...] The fruit of mindfulness practice is the realization that peace and joy are available within us and around us, right here and right now.

It is good to spend some time physically alone each day as well. You might think that you can be joyful only when you are with other people, talking and laughing and playing around. But joy and happiness can be very great in solitude as well—so deep that you are more able to share. If you have deep joy and happiness, developed in solitude, then you have a lot to give. Without the capacity for being alone, you become more and more depleted. And when you don’t have enough nourishment for yourself, you don’t have much to offer others. That’s why learning to live in solitude is important.

Physical well-being necessitates listening to what you already know, and then taking it seriously enough to act accordingly. When you wake up and feel the impulse to arch your back, stretch and exhale with a loud sigh, for God’s sake, do it.

Although you may have never sat down and defined what your philosophy is, it is fully operative and working in your life at all times. It deals with what you believe about the world in which you live, about its people and events, about how you affect them.

Reality is neither good nor bad; it is a matter of how we choose to perceive it. For someone who has mastered the art of seeing, the world is always perfect. External reality does not have to change in order to make us happy. The secret lies in changing our perception of it.

In my experience, most people are actually seeking recovery from the monotony and anxiety of qualitative repetition. This applies to body, emotions and mind. And that monotony and anxiety involves inertia just as much as over-use, meaning inertia in some areas and over-use in others.

Creating a home that makes you feel wonderful is a gift you give yourself that echoes through the rest of your life. A bedroom you love is one in which you want to have an organized, well-cared-for wardrobe, which means less money spent replacing your battered items. A happy, practical, smartly appointed kitchen is one you actually *want* to cook in, which means much less money spent eating out or ordering in. A chic and comfortable living room means more entertaining at home and embracing the lost art of dinner parties (always cheaper than doing drinks and a restaurant dinner!). Even a Zen, candle-filled, clean bathroom is one in which you want to spend time doing home spa treatments instead of feeling like you have to go somewhere expensive to feel beautiful. If you create a home that is most attuned to your life and somewhere you really enjoy being, everything benefits.

No one will improve his health significantly without accurately perceiving priorities, knowing clearly what is at stake if those are not attended to and what is to be gained if acted on correctly. That’s the basic homework before any change can come about. Then that knowledge has to be transformed into a sustainable motivation.

The typical image of a depressed, lazy and tired person is someone hunched over and inert. Often, the assumption is that if one had more enthusiasm and inspiration, he would then stand up straight and move. In many cases, this equation is backward. But, as with everything related to one’s physicality, balance is the key. An overly erect and rigid posture may convey confidence and power to some, but it also causes a subtle accumulation of tension and rigidity on various levels, including psychological and emotional.

Sin is the preclusion of self-worth.

I feel happy to be here, and still a little sad to be here too. Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive. 11

I'm glad to get home, but I have no worry. If we are in a hurry we die in the outcome.

And for the unpeaceful, how can there be happiness?

I am not here to be average, I am not here to be great, I am not here to be successful, and I am not here to be happy, I am here to simply be all of me.

Those with limited views are fearful and irresolute: the faster they hurry, the slower they go.

how do you lead if you're being followed?

Knowing how to handle suffering, you know at the same time how to produce happiness. And if you’re truly happy, we all profit from your happiness. We need happy people in this world.

Getting down to the gym a couple days a week and having low-fat milk in your morning latte isn’t going to make much of a dent in a system or lifestyle that is essentially, well, unwell.

We are like an ocean wave that believes it is fragile and ugly and that the other waves are more beautiful, more powerful. [...] But when this wave gets in touch with its true nature, water, it sees that water goes beyond all concepts of beautiful, ugly, high, low, here, and there. Whether it’s a large wave or a small wave, half a wave or a third of a wave, it is still made out of water. Water is beyond all these qualifications—it is without birth and without death. A wave is really only water, and as far as water is concerned, all waves are equal because all waves are water.

Yearning often does not provide a sense of attainment or “peace,” as it is fuel for one’s personal purpose, to in some specific way give or create; to do that is not necessarily easy or peaceful.

Be pragmatic, then. If you’re not happy with the way your writing has gone, you might give my method a try. If you do, I think you might easily find a new definition for Work. And the word is LOVE. 1973

Your action, what you do, depends on who you are. The quality of your action depends on the quality of your being. [...] So there is a link between doing and being. If you don’t succeed in being, you can’t succeed in doing.

WU WEI flow of Life governed by Tao flow of change spontaneous natural effortless acting through non-action connecting with Earth and Moon and Sun through being not inert or lazy or passive but swimming swiftly within the current merging Life with Tao quiet and watchful not-interfering receptive alert directly connected acting without action trusting detached without desire spontaneous natural effortless Living

People generally believe that stress is responsible for depletion, but apathy and uninspired systematic repetition are equally responsible. Or rather, systematic repetition produces as much or more stress and anxiety as anything else.

When you hold the hand of a child, invest one hundred percent of yourself in the act of holding her hand. When you hug your partner, do the same. Forget everything else. Be totally present, totally alive in the act of hugging. This is the opposite of the way we’ve been trained to lead our lives and run our businesses. We’ve been taught to do many things at once. We answer an e-mail while we talk on the phone; while in a meeting for one project, we work on our notes for another project. Every new technology promises to help us do more things at once. Now we can send e-mail while listening to music, talking on the phone, and taking a picture, all with the same device. With your energy that dispersed, where is your power?

During that time, the young man met and married a beautiful young woman who had completed her law degree from Columbia University but had decided to pursue her MBA afterward because she had no desire to practice law. Who does? Still, they were happy.

When fear becomes collective, when anger becomes collective, it’s extremely dangerous. It is overwhelming… The mass media and the military-industrial complex create a prison for us, so we continue to think, see, and act in the same way… We need the courage to express ourselves even when the majority is going in the opposite direction… because a change of direction can happen only when there is a collective awakening… Therefore, it is very important to say, ‘I am here!’ to those who share the same kind of insight.

There is a Zen story about a student who felt he hadn’t really received the deepest essence of his master’s teaching, and so he went to question him. His master replied, “On your way here, did you see the cypress in the courtyard?” Perhaps the student was not yet very mindful. The master was saying that if, on the way to see our teacher, we go past a cypress tree or a beautiful plum tree in blossom and we don’t really see it, then when we arrive in front of our teacher, we won’t see our teacher either. We shouldn’t miss any opportunity to really see our cypress tree. There are wonders of life we walk past every day, and yet we haven’t truly seen them. What is the cypress tree on the path you take to work every day? If you cannot even see the tree, how can you see your loved ones? How can you see God?

Whether a man dispassionately sees to the core of life or passionately sees the surface, the core and the surface are essentially the same, words making them seem different only to express appearance. If name be needed, wonder names them both: from wonder into wonder existence opens.

In any relationship, you may want to check whether you have understood the other person. If it is a relationship that is harmonious, in which communication is good, then happiness is there. If communication and harmony exist, it means mutual understanding is there. Don’t wait until the other person has left or is full of anger to ask the important question “Do you think I understand you enough?” The other person will tell you if you haven’t understood enough. He will know if you’re able to listen with compassion. You may say, “Please tell me, please help me. Because I know very well that if I don’t understand you, I will make a lot of mistakes.” That is the language of love.

It’s highly refined stuff—holding to one’s purpose and focus, but also intuiting the value of being a piece in a larger design and evolution. The balance between these two rhythms is where and when true harmony is achieved and magic happens. Often, just the release of the obsession for personal preferences and to personally gain opens the door.

Life should be full of- Compassion, Peace, Companionship, Honor, Love, Honesty, Joy, Rapture, Euphoria, Friendship, Family, Spiritual Enrichment, Enlightenment, Trust, Truth, Loyalty, Passion, Cultural Enrichment, Unity, Serenity, Zen, Wonder, Respect, Beauty of All Kinds, Balance of all Creation, Philosophy, Adventure, Art, Happiness, Bliss, Serendipity, Kismet, Fantasy, Positivity, Yin, Yang, Color, Variety, Excitement, Sharing, Fun, Sound, Paradise, Magick, Tenderness, Strength, Devotion, Courage, Conviction, Responsibility, Wisdom, Justice, Satisfaction, Fulfillment, Purpose, Mystery, Healing, Learning, Virtue, History, Creativity, Imagination, Receptiveness and Faith. For through these things you are One with your Creator.

Ironically, many of the institutions that run the economy, such as medicine, education, law and even psychology are largely dependent upon failing health. If you add up the amounts of money exchanged in the control, anticipation and reaction to failing health (insurance, pharmaceutical research and products, reactive or compensatory medicine, related legal issues, consultation and therapy for those who are unwilling to improve their physical health and claim or believe the problem is elsewhere, etc.), you end up with an enormous chunk. To keep that moving, we need people to be sick. Then we have the extreme social emphasis placed on the pursuit and maintenance of a lifestyle based on making money at any cost, often at the sacrifice of health, sanity and well-being.

It’s like when you climb a ladder. When you get to the fourth rung, you may think you are on the highest step and cannot go higher, so you hold on to the fourth rung. But in fact there is a fifth rung; if you want to get to it, you have to be willing to abandon the fourth rung. Ideas and perceptions should be abandoned all the time, to make room for better ideas and truer perceptions. This is why we must always ask ourselves, “Am I sure?

The fact is that the future is made of the present. If you take care of the present to the best of your ability, you are doing everything you can to ensure a happy future. [...] You have the right to plan your future, but you have to let go first and put your anchor down in the present. You must dwell in the present to effectively plan for the future. Your only worry should be to sit stably in the present moment in order to skillfully take care of the future.

When psychotherapists studying the art of achievement analyzed the language and thought patterns of the most successful people, they discovered a very interesting thing.  Those people never talked about having to do something - they talked about making certain choices, because even if someone puts a gun to your head, you still do have a choice. It can be a crappy choice, but you have it. In this case you can either do what they tell you to do or you can ignore them.

If you’re ignoring a high percentage of the elements of your entire being, and the range of qualities they can naturally engage, there will be no real recovery or progress until you do. The typical relentless worker is just as lazy as the typical indulgent idler; they’re both just going through the habitual motions. To break the repetitive pattern, and discover more energy and effectiveness, one simply must stretch out in all directions, rotating focus and application of the qualities that make up one’s natural versatility.

Reading while listening to the sounds of birds and the rush of water. This is the way of life that has come to be idealized. Don't think of unpleasant things right before bed. A five minute "bed zazen" before going to sleep. People who do their best to enjoy what is before them have the greatest chance to discover inner peace. Often, whatever it is they are enjoying - the thing before them - has the potential to turn into an opportunity. Stop dismissing whatever it is that you are doing and start living. Seek not what you lack. Be content with the here and now. When you are uncertain, simplicity is the best way to go. Conscientious living begins with early to bed, early to rise. This is the secret to a life of ease and contentment. Don't be bound by a single perspective. There is more than just "the proper way". Possibility springs from confidence. When someone criticizes us, we immediately feel wounded. When something unpleasant happens, we cannot get it out of our head. What can we do to bounce back? One way to strengthen the mind is though cleaning. When we clean, we use both our head and our body. Recognize the luxury of not having things. Desire feeds upon itself and the mind becomes dominated by boundless greed. This is not happiness. The three poisons are greed, anger and ignorance. Be grateful for every day, even the most ordinary. The happiness to be found in the unremarkable. Your mind has the power to decide whether or not you are happy. There is not just one answer. The meaning behind Zen koans. When there are things we want to do, we must do them as if our lives depend on it. Time spent out of character is empty time.

If you, one, loves something or someone, that means that one is willing to, and does, sacrifice for it. That is, one chooses to do and give what is better to the being or thing one loves than to sacrifice the loved one for the personal emotion that is unrelated to or even hinders the giving. In other words, the way to transform an emotion is with a deeper one. This involves discernment and, yes, discipline, which are both frowned upon and seen as emotionless and less important. Which is immaturity, plain and simple, and is the fundamental aspect of human growth from child to adolescence to adult.

The essential dynamic underlying almost every elite and esoteric physical art is work with the breath, so there’s information available. I would only add that it’s unfortunate that so much work is done with it, and not much play. Laughter has got to be the single healthiest activity one can perform. Just think how healthy you would be if you could sincerely laugh at that which now oppresses you. I’ve mentioned before that one good measure of someone’s depth of spirituality is how long it takes before they become offended. Imagine laughing hysterically at the criticisms, complaints and impositions you receive. At the least, you’d be breathing well.

Awkward conversations. They’re the heart of the drug trade. The driving force that keeps criminals out of jail is paranoia. You can think you know people, but the truth is, you never know who they’re talking to. The life of an outlaw: Around every corner lies a cop. In every basement waits a bust. Every friend is the guy who sells you out to keep his own ass out of jail. Sure, it was rare, but you just never knew. The result was a series of shorthand and euphemisms so obscure even the pros often weren’t sure what they were talking about. Sales became pickups. Pot, ganja, bud, or weed became lettuce, green, happy, herb, smoke... the list went on, and changed from dealer to dealer.

If I were to make a list of focus for well-being, I would begin with lifestyle (the totality of one’s circumstance and how that is engaged, including job and relationships, and proximity to nature), attending to the physical functions correctly (posture, breathing, exercise, food, rest, etc.), consistent expression of your natural range of qualities, working and playing well and hard, and designing things so that you are doing what compels you. Obviously, you can’t give this list out as a prescription for physical problems and diseases, but then again, it is probably the correct prescription. If one were to follow it, any specific problem, even extreme, would almost certainly resolve itself.

Americans gear all their living to a constantly challenging world and are prepared to accept the challenge. Japanese reassurances are based rather on a way of life that is planned and charted beforehand and where the greatest threat comes from the unforeseen. The Japanese, more than any other sovereign nation, have been conditioned to a world where the smallest details of conduct are mapped and status is assigned. During two centuries where law and order were maintained in such a world with an iron hand, the Japanese learned to identify this meticulously plotted hierarchy with safety and security. So long as they stayed within known boundaries and so long as they fulfilled known obligations, they could trust their world. The Japanese point of view is that obeying the law is repayment upon their highest indebtedness. In spite of the fact that Japan is one of the great Buddhist nations in the world, her ethics at this point contrast sharply with the teachings of Gautama Buddha and of the holy books of Buddhism. The Japanese do not condemn self-gratification. They are not Puritans. They consider physical pleasures good and worthy of cultivation. Buddhist teachers and modern nationalistic leaders have written and spoken on this theme: human nature in Japan is naturally good and to be trusted. It does not need to flight and evil half of itself. It needs to cleanse the windows of its soul and act with appropriateness on every different occasion. The Japanese define the supreme task of life as fulfilling one's obligations. They fully accept the fact that repaying "on" means sacrificing one's personal desires and pleasures. The idea that the pursuit of happiness is a serious goal of life is to them an amazing and immoral doctrine. Happiness is a relaxation in which one indulges when one can. Zen seeks only the light man can find in himself. if you do this, if you do that, the adults say to the children, the word will laugh at you. The rules are particularistic and situational and a great many of them concern what we should call etiquette. They require subordinating one's own will to the ever-increasing duties to neighbors, to family and country. The child must restrain himself, he must recognize his indebtedness. Training is explicit for every art and skill. It is the habit that is taught, not just the rules. Adults do not consider that children will "pick up" the proper habits when the time to employ them comes around. Great things can only be achieved through self-restraint. Japanese people often keep their thoughts busy with trivial minutiae in order to stave off awareness of their real feelings. They are mechanical in the performance of a disciplined routine which is fundamentally meaningless to them. Japan's real strength which she can use in remaking herself into a peaceful nation lies in her ability to say to a course of action: "that failed" and then to throw her energies into other channels. The Japanese have an ethic of alternatives.

The practice of being mindful of your breathing, your walking, your breakfast-making helps you go home to yourself in the here and now, to be mindful of what is going on in your body, your feelings and your perceptions[.]

We can judge our success at work in many ways. Usually we judge it by how much money we make, what title we have, and how much others recognize our achievements. But if you can go to work each day as a bodhisattva, if your presence at work brings you and others joy, then you have a successful work life. You have succeeded in the present moment, the only moment that exists.

Do you have the time to be there for yourself? Do you have the time for a cup of tea, for an orange, for your in-breath, your out-breath? Do you have the time to take steps without thinking of your projects?

In my monastery, as in all those belonging to the Zen tradition, there is a very fine portrait of Bodhidharma. It is a Chinese work of art in ink, depicting the Indian monk with sober and vigorous features. The eyebrows, eyes, and chin of Bodhidharma express an invincible spirit. Bodhidharma lived, it is said, in the fifth century A.D. He is considered to be the First Patriarch of Zen Buddhism in China. It might be that most of the things that are reported about his life have no historical validity; but the personality as well as the mind of this monk, as seen and described through tradition, have made him the ideal man for all those who aspire to Zen enlightenment. It is the picture of a man who has come to perfect mastery of himself, to complete freedom in relation to himself and to his surroundings—a man having that tremendous spiritual power which allows him to regard happiness, unhappiness, and all the vicissitudes of life with an absolute calm. The essence of this personality, however, does not come from a position taken about the problem of absolute reality, nor from an indomitable will, but from a profound vision of his own mind and of living reality. The Zen word used here signifies "seeing into his own nature." When one has reached this enlightenment, one feels all systems of erroneous thought crushed inside oneself. The new vision produces in the one enlightened a deep peace, a great tranquility, as well as a spiritual force characterized by the absence of fear. Seeing into one's own nature is the goal of Zen.

மகிழ்ச்சிக்கான உண்மையான மூலாதாரம் நம்முடைய அகத்தில்தான் குடிகொண்டுள்ளது.

கோபக்கார மனிதன் ஒருவன் யுத்தத்திலும் வாழ்விலும் தன்னைத் தானே தோற்கடித்துவிடுவான்.

I’m happy to be riding back into this country. It is a kind of nowhere, famous for nothing at all and has an appeal because of just that.

நாம் எந்தவொரு விஷயத்தைச் செய்யும்போதும், ஞானோதயத்தையும் அதன் வாயிலாக மகிழ்ச்சியையும் நாம் அனுபவிக்கக்கூடிய ஒரு விதத்தில் அவ்விஷயத்தை ஒருமித்த கவனத்துடனும் ஓர் அமைதியான மற்றும் எளிய மனத்துடனும் செய்வதுதான் ஜென் அணுகுமுறையாகும்.” ஜென்

Happiness is possible when you’re in communication with yourself. To do this, you have to leave your telephone behind. When you attend a meeting or an event, you turn off your telephone. Why? Because you want to communicate and absorb others’ communication. It is the same when communicating with yourself. This kind of communication is not possible with the phone. We’re used to thinking a lot and talking a lot. But to communicate with ourselves, we need to practice nonthinking and nontalking.

If you don’t communicate well with yourself, you cannot communicate well with another person. Come back again and again and communicate lovingly with yourself. That is the practice. You have to go back to yourself and listen to the happiness you may have in this moment; listen to the suffering in your body and in your mind, and learn how to embrace it and bring relief.

மாற்றத்தைப் புரிந்து கொள்ளுவதற்கான ஒரே வழி, அதில் மூழ்கி, அதோடு பயணித்து, அதோடு நாட்டியமாடுவதுதான்.

ஒரு சங்கிலியில் உள்ள மிகவும் பலவீனமான கண்ணி எந்த அளவு வலிமையானதாக இருக்கிறதோ, அந்தச் சங்கிலியும் அந்த அளவு வலிமையானதாகத்தான் இருக்கும்,

பிரபஞ்சம் எப்போதும் உங்களுடைய பலவீனமான பகுதியையே தாக்குகிறது. ஏனெனில், அந்தப் பகுதிதான் அதிகமாக வலுவூட்டப்பட வேண்டிய ஒன்றாக இருக்கிறது.

கண்டுபிடிப்புகளுக்கும் அனுபவங்களுக்குமான ஓர் இடமே இந்த பூமி. நீங்கள் இந்த பூமியில் பிறந்திருப்பது ஒரு தற்செயலான நிகழ்வு அல்ல. நீங்கள் ஓர் ஆன்மிக அம்சம். உங்களைக் கச்சிதப்படுத்திக் கொள்ளுவதற்காக நீங்கள் இங்கு வந்திருக்கிறீர்கள். உங்களுடைய பிரச்சனைகளும் நீங்கள் அனுபவித்துள்ள துன்பங்களும் அந்த நோக்கத்திற்காகவே நிகழ்ந்துள்ளன. அந்த நோக்கத்தைக் கண்டுபிடிக்காமல் நீங்கள் இந்த உலகத்தைவிட்டுப் போய்விட்டால், நயாகரா நீர்வீழ்ச்சியைப் பார்ப்பதற்காகப் பல நூறு மைல்கள் பயணித்து வந்துவிட்டு, இறுதியில் உங்கள் ஹோட்டல் அறையிலேயே உங்கள் விடுமுறை முழுவதையும் கழிப்பதுபோல உங்கள் வாழ்க்கை ஆகிவிடும்.