Be Free Where You Are

We are there for the food because the food is there for us; it is only fair. Eat in mindfulness and you will be worthy of the Earth and the sky.

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

You don’t have to fight that energy; you only have to recognize it as yours and smile at it. That is enough. “Hello there, my habit energy. I know you’re there, but you cannot do anything to me.” You smile at it, and then you are free. This is a wonderful protection.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

The Earth is our mother and is always there for us. She has produced us, brought us to life; and she will receive us and bring us back again and again, countless times.

“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 mea