ISBN 10: 0062005820
ISBN-13: 978-0062005823
My Notes:
No matter what you’re doing, you can choose to do it with your full presence, with mindfulness and concentration; and your action becomes a spiritual practice.
Just one breath, in and out, can make us fully present and fully alive again, and then the energy of mindfulness is there in us. Mindfulness is the energy that makes us fully present, fully alive in the here and the now.
spiritual practice is possible for all of us. You cannot say, “I’m just too busy, I have no time for meditation.” No. Walking from one building to another, walking from the parking lot to your office, you can always enjoy walking mindfully, and enjoy every one of your steps.
Brushing my teeth and rinsing my mouth, I vow to speak purely and lovingly. When my mouth is fragrant with right speech, a flower blooms in the garden of my heart.
Don’t let habitual thinking carry you off to events of the past or the future, or trap you in worries, sorrow, or anger.
Deep down, we believe we can’t really be happy just yet—that we still have a few more boxes to be checked off before we can really enjoy life.
I have arrived, I am home in the here, in the now. I am solid, I am free. In the ultimate I dwell.
You have many things to do, and you want to succeed in every area. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you should arrange your life so that your work truly brings you happiness each day.
Know how to shake off the worries and live joyfully.
The Four Noble Truths are: first, there is suffering; second, there is a path or a series of conditions that has produced the suffering; third, suffering can be ended—happiness is always possible; and fourth, there is a path that leads to the cessation of suffering, to happiness.
Everything we see, hear, think, and experience gets stored away in the depths of our consciousness. The Buddha called this our store consciousness.
Liberation means, first of all, breaking out of the prison of our past.
Mindful consumption means choosing to consume things that bring peace and happiness, rather than agitation and harm, to our body and mind
We may have cultivated good taste and beautiful ideals in ourselves and our family, but we could lose them if we go to live in a place where everyone has tastes and habits that are different from ours. At first we feel uncomfortable, but after a while we become accustomed to the ideas of the majority, and in the end we’re following the crowd without even realizing it.
Our happiness or lack of happiness depends mostly on the state of our mind, not on anything external. It’s our own attitude, the way we look at things, our approach to life, that determines whether we’re happy or not.
(“ What are we waiting for to be happy? Why wait to celebrate?”)
Someone who’s there today might not be there tomorrow; someone who’s strong and healthy today might fall ill tomorrow; someone who’s not very nice today may become a much nicer person tomorrow; and so on.
True love brings only happiness; it never makes you suffer.
When we think we’re loving someone but we don’t really understand him, we end up hurting him.
(“ The right charity begins with oneself”).
The Earth belongs to our children. We have already borrowed too much from it, from them; and the way things have been going, we’re not sure we’ll be able to give it back to them in decent shape.
We need a collective awakening. One Buddha is not enough.
End of Notes
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