A Heart Full of Peace

By making right speech an active part of our spiritual path, we can bring wisdom and sensitivity to what we say.

“If you say that seven hours walk is too long to walk for two families of patients, you’re saying that their lives matter less than some others. And the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that’s wrong with the world.”

need, and that is the watchman named mindfulness—the guard who is always on the lookout for when we get carried away by mindlessness.”

hatred never ceases through hatred; it ceases only in response to love.

The Dalai Lama goes to the heart of things in the most simple and down-to-earth way. “We are visitors on this planet,” he has said. “We are here for ninety, one hundred years at most. During that period we must try to do something good, something useful with our lives. Try to be at peace with yourself and help others to share that peace. If you con

Unnoticed, thoughts have great power.

We might think of the mind as being like clear, open space. All kinds of things can arise there, but the space itself is not affected.

And desire is so often glamorized in advertising and media, it’s as if increasing one’s desire is something to aim for. One advertisement even co-opted a spiritual message in its effort to foster more wanting. The picture shows a man in front of some new car, which itself was surrounded by all of the techno-gadgets that one would ever want. The cap

Especially at the beginning of the practice, most of us get in touch with some physical pain. And then there are our various reactions to it: fear, self-pity, defensiveness, or avoidance. Mostly, we just don’t like it. We try to just “watch the pain” but really we are trying to bargain with it: “I’ll watch you… if you go away.”

Love your crooked neighbor with all your crooked heart. W.H. AUDEN