The Art of Living: mindful techniques for peaceful living from one of the world’s most revered spiritual leaders

As we learn to handle our suffering, we are learning to generate moments of nirvana.

All the things we think we’ve got to find on the outside are already there inside us. Loving-kindness, understanding, and compassion are there within us. We need only to clear some of the rock obstructing the way in order to reveal them.

Walking in peace and freedom is a wonderful way to bring the ultimate dimension into the historical dimension. It’s a way to train ourselves not to run.

Watering our seeds of joy and well-being helps our suffering transform.

grow. When the seed of happiness in you is watered, your happiness will bloom.

Just as birds enjoy soaring in the sky, and deer enjoy roaming in the woods, so do the wise ones enjoy dwelling in nirvana. We don’t have to look very far to find nirvana, because it is our true nature in this very moment. You cannot remove the ultimate from yourself.

the removal of afflictions is the presence of nirvana.

As you breathe in and out, imagine someone playing a very long note on a violin, drawing the bow back and forth across the string. The note sounds continuous. If you were to draw an image of your breath, it would look like a figure eight, not a straight line, because there is continuity as your breath flows in and out. Your breathing becomes the mu

Our quality of being determines our quality of doing.