It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. ~Krishnamurti.......................WHEN I DESPAIR, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of this always. -- Mahatma Gandhi .............................In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us............ Thich Nhat Hanh

Spiritual Quotes 4

Clear mind is like the full moon in the sky.
Sometimes clouds come and cover it,
but the moon is always behind them.
Clouds go away, then the moon shines brightly.
So don't worry about clear mind: it is always there.
When thinking comes, behind it is clear mind.
When thinking goes, there is only clear mind.
Thinking comes and goes, comes and goes,
You must not be attached to the coming or the going.
—Zen Master Seung Sahn

 

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not
love it.


—Dogen

When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.


—Shunryu Suzuki


People in the West are always getting ready to live.


—Chinese Proverb


The mind, the Buddha, living creatures - these are not three different things.

-Avatamasaka Sutra



If you live the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion.

—Lin-Chi

Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter.

—Longchenpa(14th century Tibet)

 

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

Thich Nhat Hanh

In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.

 

Thich Nhat Hanh

In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.

Thich Nhat Hanh

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

Thich Nhat Hanh

Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.


Thich Nhat Hanh

The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.

Thich Nhat Hanh


We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

Thich Nhat Hanh


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.

Thich Nhat Hanh

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.

 

HH Dalai Lama

 

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.


Author: Madame Marie Curie

 

What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? 

~Henry David Thoreau

 

Our modern society is engaged in polishing and decorating the cage in which man is kept imprisoned.  ~

Swami Nirmalananda, Enlightened Anarchism

YOU SEE, THE PAST IS PAST and the future is yet to come. That means the future is in your hands-the future entirely depends on the present. That realization gives you a great responsibility.

--H.H. the Dalia Lama

THE TEACHINGS ARE LIKE A RAFT, to be abandoned once you have crossed the flood. Since you should abandon even good states of mind generated by these teachings, how much more so should you abandon bad states of mind!

-- The Buddha

 

IT IS USELESS TO THINK OF OTHER PEOPLE'S DEFILEMENTS,
totally useless. The only defilements that are of any interest are our own. They are exactly the same as everybody else's, only in different proportions.

--Sister Ayya Khema
from "Be An Island Unto Yourself," 1986, Sri Lanka

 

You can guage a society by the way it treats its animals

Plato

 

The things that are wrong with the country today are the sum total of all the things that are wrong with us as individuals. 

~Charles W. Tobey

 

The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. 

~Omar Bradley

 

DUE TO OUR FEELINGS ARISING FROM CONTACT, we think and we rationalize, conceptualize, theorize, philosophize and speculate. Because of the feeling arising from the six senses, we increase our desire; we come to wrong views and wrong beliefs. We recall our past sights, smells, sounds, tastes, touches and ideas and build up more desires, thoughts, concepts, beliefs, ideas, theories and philosophies.

--Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
from "Are You Happy?"

 

When people go to work, they shouldn't have to leave their hearts at home.

 ~Betty Bender

Society is composed of two great classes - those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners. 

 ~Sébastien-Roch Nicholas de Chamfort

We are serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self...

Zen Master

...WESTERNERS THINK THAT ALL THAT IS NEGATIVE and positive is only caused from outside of themselves. They materialize and externalize their experiences, never understanding the connection between outer and inner phenomena or interdependent phenomena, looking for explanations only from objects through extreme nihilist habit instead of from the subjective experience of their own minds. --

Thinly Norbu Rinpoche


No desire means no disturbing emotions, no pain of attachment, no pain of
anger, no pain of jealousy and there is tranquility, peace, openness, no
barriers, space for love and compassion...


-Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche

 

Our life is a battlefield, sleeping and waking...

 Krishnamurti

Recognizing undesirable situations as desirable is one of the most powerful
thought training practices. It is the way to transform suffering into
happiness...


-Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche


When clerics visit their patrons, they happily eat all the sheep that have been killed and served to them, without the least hesitation....In Buddhism, once we have taken refuge in the Dharma, we have to give up harming others. To have an animal killed wherever we go, and to enjoy its flesh and blood is surely against the precepts of refuge, is it not?....In the Bodhisattva tradition of the Great Vehicle, we are supposed to be the refuge and protector of all beings.  The beings with unfortunate karma that we are supposed to be protecting are instead  being killed without the slightest compassion, and their boiled flesh and blood are being presented to us and we - their protectors, the Bodhisattvas - the  gobble it all up gleefully, smacking our lips. What could be worse than that...


-Patrul Rinpoche

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