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"Concentration is not wholesome in itself. A thief needs concentration to break into a house.The object of our concentration is what makes it beneficial or not. If you use meditative concentration to run away from reality, that is not beneficial."
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Explore more quotes by Thich Nhat Hanh
"When we talk about the theology of 'God is Dead,' this means that the notion of God must be dead in order for God to reveal himself as a reality. The theologians, if they only use concepts, and not direct experience, are not very helpful. The same goes for nirvana, which is something to be touched and lived and not discussed and described. We have notions that distort truth, reality. A Zen master said the following to a large assembly: 'My friends, every time I use the word Buddha, I suffer. I am allergic to it. Every time I do it, I have to go to the bathroom and rinse my mouth three times in succession.' He said this in order to help his disciples not to get caught up in the notion of Buddha. The Buddha is one thing, but the notion of Buddha is another."
"A real love letter is made of insight, understanding, and compassion. Otherwise it's not a love letter. A true love letter can produce a transformation in the other person, and therefore in the world. But before it produces a transformation in the other person, it has to produce a transformation within us. Some letters may take the whole of our lifetime to write."
"People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child-our own two eyes. All is a miracle."
"The leaves that remain are only a very small part of the tea. The tea that goes into me is a much bigger part of the tea. It is the richest part.We are the same; our essence has gone into our children, our friends, and the entire universe. We have to find ourselves in those directions and not in the spent tea leaves."
"In us, there is a river of feelings, in which every drop of water is a different feeling, and each feeling relies on all the others for its existence. To observe it, we just sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it surfaces, flows by, and disappears."
"We humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing. We worry too much. We don't allow our bodies to heal, and we don't allow our minds and hearts to heal."
"Many of us live like dead people because we live without awareness. We carry our dead bodies with us and circulate throughout the world. We are pulled into the past or we are pulled forward into the future or we are caught by our projects or our despair and anger. We are not truly alive, we are not inhabited by awareness of the miracle of being alive."
"Our feelings are formations, impermanent and without substance. We learn not to identify with ourselves with our feelings, not to consider them as a self, not to seek refuge in them, not to die because of them."
Exlpore more Mindfulness quotes
"One who will not accept solitude, stillness and quiet recurring moments...is caught up in the wilderness of addictions; far removed from an original state of being and awareness. This is 'dis-ease."
"From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in Future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out.We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out."
"LSD stands out for learning to slow down."
"The best way to look back at life fondly is to meet it - and those along your journey - warmly, kindly and mindfully."
"To control your life, control your mind. To control your mind, control your breath."
"Quick now, here, now, always, as if we are in a condition of complete simplicity..."
"Let the moment be memorable."
"Awareness (of the Self) prevails in matters where one becomes attachment-free (vitrag), and where one has attachment-abhorrence, there his awareness will not prevail."
"The starting place for radical re-imagining of love is mindfulness."
"Inner quiet can be cultivated. Meditation is a healing balm to a frazzled brain existing in a hectic world."
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