happiness can only be recognized against the

What was clear to me was that as long as I was stuck in my own suffering, I couldn’t see anybody else’s.

If we look into one cell of our body or one cell of our consciousness, we recognize the presence of all the generations of ancestors in us. Our ancestors are not only human beings. Before human beings appeared, we were other species. We have been trees, plants, grasses, minerals, a squirrel, a deer, a monkey, and one-celled animals. All these

Embrace your suffering tenderly, suffer it with all your heart and then look deeply in order to use your concentration, your insight, so that you can bring about compassion, understanding, and you will not hate the people who try to make you suffer. And you vow to practice to live in such a way that you will be able to help them later

When we have accepted the suffering and are ready to suffer, it won’t bother us anymore. We’ll feel that we’re capable of living that suffering, because that suffering is doing us good and, like bitter melon, it’s healing us. So we allow the suffering to be in us. We accept it, and we’re ready to suffer a little bit in order to learn. If we don’t

Cultivate your beginner’s mind and remain a bodhisattva for the whole of your life. You’ll be a happy person. And you’ll be able to create happiness for many people.

But all mental formations need to circulate. If we don’t let them come up, it creates bad circulation in our psyche, and symptoms of mental illness and depression begin to manifest in our mind and body.

But to suffer like that is not something negative. You suffer in order to find a way out.

How do we bring about the feelings of joy and happiness that we need in order to be strong enough to deal with our suffering? The first thing to do is to release, to let go. Joy is born from letting go, leaving behind.