When You Feel Grateful, You Do Not Suffer

When a storm comes, it stays for some time, and then it goes.

One string bean contains the whole cosmos in it: sunshine, rain, the whole Earth, time, space, and consciousness. You also contain the whole cosmos.

Suppose you hear noises in your surroundings. You can use noise as the object of mindfulness. “Breathing in, I can hear a lot of noise. Breathing out, I smile at this noise. I know that people making noise are not always peaceful, and I feel compassion toward them.”

A bodhisattva is someone who has compassion within himself or herself and who is able to make another person smile or help someone suffer less. Every one of us is capable of this.

Our lives should have meaning, and that meaning is to help people suffer less, help people touch the joys of life. When we have compassion in our hearts, when we know that we are able to help a person suffer less, life begins to have more meaning.

In this sitting or lying position, just stick to your breathing the way that someone on the ocean would stick to a life vest. After some time the emotion will pass.

“Calm” means we calm our body, we bring peace to our body. Breathing in, I bring the element of calm into my body. If we have a feeling or an emotion that makes us feel less peaceful, then calming means to calm that feeling or emotion. Breathing in, I calm my emotions. Breathing in, I calm my feelings. When we breathe out, we say, “Ease,” which

Mindfulness is always mindfulness of something, and I chew my food in such a way that life, joy, solidity, and non-fear become possible. After twenty minutes of eating, I feel nourished—not only physically, but also mentally and spiritually. This is a very, very deep practice.