Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/25/2010

"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 Chödrön

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/24/2010

"Although it is embarrassing and painful, it is very healing to stop hiding from yourself. It is healing to know all the ways that you're sneaky, all the ways that you hide out, all the ways that you shut down, deny, close off, criticize people, all your weird little ways. You can know all of that with some sense of humor and kindness. By knowing yourself, you're coming to know humanness altogether. We are all up against these things. We are all in this together."

~Pema Chödrön

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/23/2010

"Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn't just ourselves that we're discovering. We're discovering the universe."

~Pema Chödrön

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/22/2010

"Even after many years, many of us continue to practice harshly. We practice with guilt, as if we're going to be excommunicated if we don't do it right. We practice so we won't be ashamed of ourselves and with fear that someone will discover what a "bad" meditator we really are. The old joke is that a Buddhist is someone who is either meditating or feeling guilty about not meditating. There's not much joy in that."

~Pema Chödrön

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/21/2010

"Better to join in with humanity than to set ourselves apart. Aspiring bodhisattvas train by getting more involved, rather than more detached. In paintings of the six realms, there's a Buddha standing in each realm, not just in a little bubble or looking down from above, but right in the middles of hell and the other realms."

~Pema Chödrön

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/20/2010

"A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering."

~The Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/19/2010

"All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else."

~The Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/18/2010

"Like a fine flower, beautiful to look at but without scent, fine words are fruitless in a man who does not act in accordance with them."

~Gautama Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/17/2010

"With his mind free from the inflow of thoughts and from restlessness, by abandoning both good and evil, an alert man knows no fear."

~Gautama Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/16/2010

"Foolish, ignorant people indulge in careless lives, whereas a clever man guards his attention as his most precious possession."

~Gautama Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/15/2010

"Attention leads to immortality. Carelessness leads to death. Those who pay attention will not die, while the careless are as good as dead already."

~Gautama Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/14/2010

"In the same way that rain breaks into a house with a bad roof, desire breaks into the mind that has not been practicing meditation."

~Gautama Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/13/2010

"The Tempter cannot master a man who dwells on the distasteful side of things, self-controlled in his senses, moderate in eating, resolute and full of faith, like the wind cannot move a mountain crag."

~Gautama Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/12/2010

"The Tempter masters the lazy and irresolute man who dwells on the attractive side of things, ungoverned in his senses, and unrestrained in his food, like the wind overcomes a rotten tree."

~Gautama Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/11/2010

"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."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/10/2010

"Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/9/2010

"To live in the present moment is a miracle. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/8/2010

"Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/7/2010

"For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/6/2010

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

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/5/2010

"Suffering is not enough. Life is both dreadful and wonderful...How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow? It is natural--you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/4/2010

"The wave does not need to die to become water. She is already water."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/3/2010

"I have noticed that people are dealing too much with the negative, with what is wrong. ... Why not try the other way, to look into the patient and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?"

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/2/2010

"Each moment is a chance for us to make peace with the world, to make peace possible for the world, to make happiness possible for the world."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/1/2010

"Let go of body and mind, until you reach a state of great rest, like letting go over a cliff ten miles high, being like open space. And don't produce representations of discriminations of random thoughts arising and passing away; the moment a view sticks in your mind, use the sword of wisdom to cut it right off, not letting it continue."

~Huai-t'ang

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