David Brockett, L.M.T.

Enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the ocean. — Thich Nhat Hanh.

“Look at flowers, butterflies, trees, and children with the eyes of compassion. Compassion will change your life and make it wonderful.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Image: Pinterest
♥lis

"Le très vénérable Thich Nhan Hanh était l'une des figures morales et spirituelles les plus respectées de notre époque. Il était non seulement l'un des défenseurs les plus éloquents et les plus inspirés des enseignements et des pratiques bouddhistes, mais aussi un phare de vérité dans sa campagne de non violence pour les droits de l'homme.

Sa profondeur spirituelle tranquille, combinée à une compassion et une bonté qui englobaient tout, nous manquera énormément, et son influence constructive restera certainement pour les générations à venir."

📸 Dana Gluckstein

Open your mouth only if what you are going to say is more beautiful than silence. —Thich Nhat Hanh. Photo: Lisa Tulk-Snow.

Observe, don’t react, unless you have to. Watch the show and allow it to continue. Intervene in healthy ways. Go against the current of habitual tendencies. Live life to its fullest by choice, not by dysfunctional patterns. Go to the sun without being burnt. Fly to the other shore with love. Support your deepest dreams and those of others. Be real. Be meaningful. Be natural. Love, love, and more love. Emaho!

"Our life is like a vast net connecting us to all other lives on this planet, and each part of this net is linked to all of the rest. The essence of our life is not limited within the confines of our bodies but rather is distributed across all the people and things that we are connected to. To think about our life in a way that treats it as our individual property is too limited and too small, and leads us to miss seeing its full value."

Gyalwang Karmapa, Interconnected.
Artwork by Karmapa.

OPPOSITION ONLY REFLECTS SELF-CENTEREDNESS

The depth of Truth is bottomless. Your interconnection is bottomless. A single grass in the field is perfect Buddha. How utterly one are all things! The grasses, the trees, the great earth, the great sky, all being is born in relation to all things. This is the true self, the perfect self. No matter what: all is goodness. However, because of deluded perception beings fail to realize their inherent Buddha-nature. Truth is universal and complete. Can you receive and embrace thoroughly this one truth?
(…)
There is something urging you to look deeper, something which seeks to be known: don’t you see it yet? Isn’t it clear yet? You are sitting here because you cannot help but seek truth. The genuine seeks to know itself. Truth is seeking truth. That is why you are here, putting heart and mind into meditation. Your time of awakening will come. No one is hopeless. Life is not mean. No one is left out. There is no one who is more or less Buddha than any other. True nature is never lost, never hidden from you. It only seems that you have to go looking for it.

But you have long lifetimes of fooling yourself, protecting your self-cherishing. When you have come to life again, to awakening, it will be so clear that there is no “self” and other.” There is no opposition, just this one Reality. What appears as opposition is simply the result of the self-centered view, which is of course the incorrect view. This bad habit and wrong view causes untold suffering, for yourself and for others. And you will continue to create suffering as you go on living in falsehood. You will continue to experience suffering, fear, a sense of lacking, and you’re not helping anybody.

- Tangen Harada Roshi

The Teachings Inside

Meditating and putting the teachings into practice in our daily life is essential. . . . During meditation sessions we apply what we have learned and thought about to our lives in order to gain an in-depth realization of their meaning. The teachings are not something outside of us. Rather, they become something inside, the actual way our mind thinks, the way we regard life. Integrating the teachings into our thoughts takes both practice and time. It doesn’t happen quickly or easily. There’s no shortcut to get around this process.

—Don’t Believe Everything You Think: Living with Wisdom and Compassion,
By Thubten Chodron, pages 23–24
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