I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
~ Albert Einstein
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Be a person of few activities. This doesnāt mean being lazy. It means deciding whatās really important in life and focusing your energies there.
As for the things that fritter away your time, just drop them. That simplifies life a lot. Itās the old-fashioned way of simplifying things. See which activities youāre engaged in that get the mind stirred up, and learn how to abandon them.
And "activities" here means everything from the way you look at things, the way you listen to things, to the actual responsibilities you take on.
~ į¹¬hÄnissaro Bhikkhu
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A very visceral way of showing goodwill for yourself is just this: focusing in on the breath, allow the breath to be comfortable. If you stop to reflect, you realize that many of the things youāve done in life, that you later regret, are things you did because you felt a sense of weakness, a sense of hunger. But when you work with the breath like this, and thereās a sense of comfort, a sense of fullness coming from within, that sense of hunger goes away, that sense of weakness goes away, and you find yourself acting more and more from a position of strength. You find that you can trust yourself more, that people around you can trust you more as well.
~ į¹¬hÄnissaro Bhikkhu
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When you meditate, you must observe your mind. Donāt focus so much on the movement of the body, but focus on the mind.
When all kinds of thoughts ariseāattachment, anger, or virtuous and non-virtuous thoughtsāthere is an awareness that precedes these thoughts, and that awareness you must recognize. The thoughts do not yet disappear, but there is an awareness that recognizes these thoughts. That you must recognize. That is what you must develop. As for the thoughtsāyou have to just let them go, throw them away like garbage.
You must develop stable awareness that recognizes all mental arisings. Then, when that eventually becomes stableāall those thoughts, afflictive emotions, and sufferingāyou will be able to overcome, eliminate, though this awareness.
If the awareness is not very powerful, you will still cling to the happiness that you want, but your mindfulness will not be able to overcome the suffering that you do not want. So you must habituate this mindfulness that recognizes, that sees all the thoughts that appear, and eventually through sustaining mindfulness you will be able to overcome all conceptuality and suffering.
~ Garchen Rinpoche
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Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside ā remembering all the times you've felt that way.
~ Charles Bukowsk
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