Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/31/2008

So, the tendency of our childish nature is to take small things too seriously and get easily offended, whereas when we are confronted with situations which have longterm consequences, we tend to take things less seriously.

~Tenzin Gyatso

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/30/2008

Encountering sufferings will definitely contribute to the elevation of your spiritual practice, provided you are able to transform calamity and misfortune into the path.

~Tenzin Gyatso

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/29/2008

Just as we should cultivate gentle and peaceful relations with our fellow human beings, we should also extend that same kind of attitude towards the natural environment. Morally speaking, we should be concerned for our whole environment.

~Tenzin Gyatso

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/28/2008

The creatures that inhabit this earth be they human beings or animals are here to contribute, each in its own particular way, to the beauty and prosperity of the world.

~Tenzin Gyatso

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/27/2008

In our struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we possess.

~Tenzin Gyatso

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/26/2008

Whether we are rich or poor, educated or uneducated, whatever our nationality, color, social status, or ideology may be, the purpose of our lives is to be happy.

~Tenzin Gyatso

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/25/2008

Every man has the basis of good. Not only human beings, you can find it among animals and insects, for instance, when we treat a dog or horse lovingly.

~Tenzin Gyatso

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/24/2008

People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That's not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn't understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you're given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.

~Pema Chodron

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/23/2008

Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us.

~Pema Chodron

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/22/2008

A further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us.

~Pema Chodron

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/21/2008

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.

~Pema Chodron

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/20/2008

We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who's right and who's wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don't like about our associates or our society. It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others. Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.

~Pema Chodron

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/19/2008

Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.

~Pema Chodron

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/18/2008

There's a reason you can learn from everything: you have basic wisdom, basic intelligence, and basic goodness.

~Pema Chodron

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/17/2008

If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.

~Pema Chodron

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

When we start out on a spiritual path we often have ideals we think we're supposed to live up to. We feel we're supposed to be better than we are in some way. But with this practice you take yourself completely as you are. Then ironically, taking in pain - breathing it in for yourself and all others in the same boat as you are - heightens your awareness of exactly where you're stuck.

~Pema Chodron

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/15/2008

We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.

~Pema Chodron

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/14/2008

The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

~Pema Chodron

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/13/2008

"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

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/12/2008

"If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/11/2008

"Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/10/2008

"People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/09/2008

"Smile, breathe and go slowly."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/08/2008

"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

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/07/2008

"Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/06/2008

"Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/05/2008

"We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/04/2008

"Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/03/2008

Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.

~Buddha

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/02/2008

Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.

~Buddha

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/01/2008

Let a man avoid evil deeds as a man who loves life avoids poison.

~Buddha

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion