When We Are Present, Life

The Roots Of War Are In The Way We Live Our Daily Lives -- The Way We Develop Our Industries, Build Up Our Society, And Consume Goods.

When You Call Me European, I Say Yes. When You Call Me Arab, I Say Yes. When You Call Me Black, I Say Yes. When You Call Me White, I Say Yes. Because I Am In You And You Are In Me. We Have To Inter-be With Everything In The Cosmos.

There Are So Many Things That Can Provide Us With Peace. Next Time You Take A Shower Or A Bath, I Suggest You Hold Your Big Toes In Mindfulness. We Pay Attention To Everything Except Our Toes. When We Hold Our Toes In Mindfulness And Smile At Them, We Will Find That Our Bodies Have Been Very Kind To Us. We Know That Any Cell In Our Toes Can Turn Cancerous, But Our Toes Have Been Behaving Very Well, Avoiding That Kind Of Problem. Yet, We Have Not Been Nice To Them At All. These Kinds Of Practices Can Bring Us Happiness.

When You Climb A Ladder And Arrive On The Sixth Step And You Think That Is The Highest, Then You Cannot Come To The Seventh. So The Technique Is To Abandon The Sixth In Order For The Seventh Step To Be Possible. And This Is Our Practice, To Release Our Views. The Practice Of Nonattachment To Views Is At The Heart Of The Buddhist Practice Of Meditation.

When You Plant Lettuce, If It Does Not Grow Well, You Don't Blame The Lettuce. You Look For Reasons It Is Not Doing Well. It May Need Fertilizer, Or More Water, Or Less Sun. You Never Blame The Lettuce. Yet If We Have Problems With Our Friends Or Family, We Blame The Other Person. But If We Know How To Take Care Of Them, They Will Grow Well, Like The Lettuce. Blaming Has No Positive Effect At All, Nor Does Trying To Persuade Using Reason And Arguments. That Is My Experience. No Blame, No Reasoning, No Argument, Just Understanding.