Quotes from Sakyong Mipham

Gentleness is like water—it will eventually reach its goal. Aggression is like fire—it is quick and then it is gone.

Aggression is a short-term solution for a long-term problem. Gentleness is persistent. Gentleness is therefore a sign of strength, while aggression is often a sign of weakness.

To be gentle is to encourage ourselves.

Happiness is not necessarily how many things we have—happiness is the ability to share what we have with others.

The confidence of the tiger does not try to dominate others. Rather, it conquers our own doubt, enhancing our awake and positive qualities.

What is my motivation?

Contemplation is essentially a process of convincing ourselves. We have read books and heard lectures, but now we must make our motivation personal.

1. Running with the Mind of Meditation

When we're on the "me" plan, what others say about us has great power. A friend tells us we look good—our mind soars. A colleague tells us we're not pulling our weight at work—our mind sinks.

This wisdom sees water for water, earth for earth, fire for fire, and wind for wind. We are not surprised by change, and when it occurs, we can be like water and flow. When it is time to be solid like the earth, we can be steadfast. When the heat of enthusiasm is necessary, we are like the fire of all fires. We can blow with the wind of virtue, uplifting any situation. Or we can rest in space, accommodating everything. This is the power of a king or queen—the warrior of all warriors.

My meditation teachers taught me that with aggression, you may accomplish some things, but with gentleness, you can accomplish all things.

is the ability to share what we have with others.

To me, the relationship between meditation and running is natural, for one is a training of the mind and one is a training of the body.

The practice of overcoming hope is recognizing our positive qualities. With excessive hope, we begin to belittle what we have achieved. We might then feel inadequate and have fear of not achieving more.

our future depends on our actions as a species.

How we move forward cannot depend on one spiritual tradition, economy, or political system, but rather should depend on who we feel we are, both personally and socially. What is the nature of humans and our society?

In this light, human nature is the most important global issue.

Bringing heaven down to earth, into our daily life, is how we rule our world.

Speech can be reactionary or it can create initiative. This dynamic exists in life, too. Our experience of words is largely based on our communal culture and what realities seem important at the time. At present our society is in danger of creating a reactionary story of fear, hate, and aggression.

Remember why you are meditating: to balance the activity of your life by working with your mind.

Although the process of meditating is different from running, the tools are the same: we need to be determined and exert ourselves. If we can get through the beginning, we will probably be successful.

when we exert ourselves toward positive endeavors, we should not grimace, but rather have the joy of an elephant jumping into a pool of cool water on a hot, dusty day.

Confidence is the outgrowth of positive qualities, whereas pride is the outgrowth of negative qualities among positive qualities.

However, especially in an age of coarsening values, it is hard to feel our natural kindness because it is often blocked by reactionary emotions. This occurs when we divide the world into us versus them. Then the more we forget our kindness, the more unkindness there is, and the more we forget.