“Zenfully Quool Quotes”
Currently featuring “The Art of Living”
By Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh
Our quality of life and true happiness
does not depend on external conditions or external proof.
It doesn’t depend on how much money we have,
or what kind of job or car or house.
In Plum Village,
none of the monks or nuns has a personal bank account,
or credit card, or salary, and yet we live very happily.
By North American standards, we are not normal at all.
But we are very happy to live simply and
have a chance to help others and serve the world.
True happiness depends on our capacity to
cultivate compassion and understanding and
bring nourishment and healing to ourselves and our loved ones.
All of us need to love and be loved.
In our relationships we may look for someone who symbolizes what is
good, true, and beautiful, to fill up our own feeling of lack.
The person you fall in love with soon becomes the object of your craving.
But sexual desire is not the same as love,
and sexual relations motivated by craving
can never dissipate the feeling of loneliness,
but only create more suffering and isolation.
If you want to heal your loneliness,
you first have to learn how to heal yourself,
be there for yourself, and cultivate your own inner garden of
love, acceptance, and understanding.
Once you have cultivated love and understanding in yourself,
you have something to offer the other person.
But so long as we don’t yet love or understand ourselves,
how can we blame others for not loving us,
or not understanding us?
Freedom, peace, love, and understanding
are not things we can obtain from the outside.
They are something already available within us.
Our practice is to do everything we can in order to bring
love, understanding, freedom, and fearlessness to light,
by looking deeply into ourselves, and by listening to ourselves.
Instead of running after the objects of our craving,
or making our loved ones an object of our craving,
we should spend the time we have cultivating true love
and understanding in our hearts.
A true friend is someone who offers peace and happiness.
If you’re a true friend to yourself,
you are able to offer yourself the true peace and happiness you seek.
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Zenfully Quool Quotes Quommentary – by rog
You are the happiness you seek.
There is an ‘Inner Happiness’ that is not affected by
materialistic objects or drama.
If you abide in a generally good natured happiness…
Small trivial obstacles won’t affect your well being.
By taking this realization deeper…
There will be nothing that affects your equanimity.
Your True Nature is happiness…
Our True ‘Self’ is ineffable, in that words can’t describe it…
There is nothing in this material world that we can
use to compare and conceptualize it…
But,
It feels like Love.
The feeling you get when you are in love with a lover.
The feeling you get when you are admiring a loved one, parent or inspiring person.
The feeling you get when you are adoring a cherished pet.
This feeling is not an object or any materialistic substance…
Therefore,
It can not be affected by the chaos in this materialistic world.
…
Unless we allow it to get under our skin… piss us off, willfully allow it to upset our well-being.
Those are all options…
And so is happiness.
Don’t choose unhappiness…
Unless it makes you… happy.
If that’s the case…
Buddhism can’t help…
Go see a shrink!
