Quotes About Practice

You have to train yourself, to learn how to go home to the present moment, to the here and now

We can also explore four additional concentrations on impermanence, non-craving, letting go, and nirvana. These four practices are found in Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing, a wonderful text from early Buddhism.

No view can ever be the truth. It is just from one point; that is why it is called a "point of view." If we go to another point, we will see things differently and realize that our first view was not entirely right. Buddhism is not a collection of views. It is a practice to help us eliminate wrong views. The quality of our views can always be improved. From the viewpoint of ultimate reality, Right View is the absence of all views.

Aprende el arte de cultivar la alegría.

If we practice for five or ten minutes every day, we'll naturally remember how to practice when we most need it, and we can survive the onslaught of a strong emotion very easily.

There is a saying: If a tiger comes down off his mountain and goes to the lowlands, he will be caught by humans and killed. It means if a practitioner leaves his or her Sangha, it becomes difficult to continue the practice. Taking refuge in the Sangha is not a matter of devotion. It is a matter of practice.

We can only accept teachings that we have put into practice with our own awakened understanding and that we can see with our own experience to be true.

Each time we practice sitting meditation, walking meditation, awareness of breathing, loving speech, deep listening, or any other mindfulness practice, our roots are growing stronger and deeper and we are gaining more solidity and strength.

If you have enough spiritual strength, you will give birth to a spiritual child, and through your life and practice, you continue giving birth, even after you die.

With our faith in our community of two or more, we can go anywhere.When the three roots of faith, practice, and community support have fed us deeply, then we will be solid both alone and in our relationships. We will not just survive; we will flourish. Often in our daily lives, we are just focused on survival. But fidelity is not a question of survival. It is one of vitality.

If monks and nuns do not cherish their time of practice, they will have nothing to offer the world.

Sorrow, fear, and depression are all a kind of garbage. These bits of garbage are part of real life, and we must look deeply into their nature. You can practice in order to turn these bits of garbage into flowers. It is not only your love that is organic; your hate is, too. So you should not throw anything out. All you have to do is learn how to transform your garbage into flowers.

When Jesus said, I am the way, He meant that to have a true relationship with God, you must practice His way.

We must practice living deeply, loving, and acting with charity if we wish to truly honor Jesus.

To bring wisdom into bloom? Yes, because the ultimate aim of Zen is the vision of reality, acquired by the power of concentration. This wisdom is Enlightenment, the perception of the truth of being and of life. This is what all practitioners of Zen wish to attain.

The object of your practice should first of all be yourself. Your love for the other, your ability to love another person, depends on your ability to love yourself." If you are not able to take care of yourself

When a scientist works in his laboratory, he does not smoke, he does not eat sweets, and does not listen to the radio. He abstains not because he thinks that these things are sins, but because he knows that they impede the perfect concentration of his mind on the object of his study. It is much the same in Zen Discipline : the observance of this discipline must help the practitioner to live in Awareness of Being; it does not lead to moral objectives.

We can only dispel our mutual isolation when we practice mindfulness and are able to truly come home to ourselves and each other.

Zen Wisdom cannot be obtained by the intellect: study, hypothesis, analysis, synthesis. The practitioner of Zen must use all of his entire being as an instrument of realization; the intellect is only one part of his being, and a part that often pulls him away from living reality, the very object of Zen.

Although different from Indian Buddhism from the standpoint of form and practice, in the end Zen seems to be more authentic than many other Buddhist schools. In particular, Zen emphasizes the necessity of practice aiming at enlightenment which is the very foundation of Buddhism.

In the monastery, one must be aware of all that one does. If, for example, the student shuts the door in a noisy way, he thus proves that he is not aware of his being. Virtue does not lie exactly in the fact of closing the door gently, but in the awareness of the fact that one is in the process of closing the door.

There is no enlightenment outside daily life.

Master Linji used language that was particularly harsh and strong to remind the monks in clear terms that the only role of a practitioner is to live simply, as an ordinary person, and not to put on airs. This is still a fundamental challenge for us today.

To practice the Four Noble Truths, you yourself have to touch deeply the things that bring you peace and joy. When you do, you realize that walking on the Earth is a miracle, washing the dishes is a miracle, and practicing with a community of friends is a miracle. The greatest miracle is to be alive.