(1) all existence is suffering; (2) suffering is caused by selfish craving; (3) the eradication of selfish craving brings about the cessation of suffering and enables one to attain nirvana; and (4) there is a path by which this eradication can be achieved, namely, the discipline of the eightfold path.

When such a moment occurs, it’s like being in a special zone, where the unpredictable world outside and the turbulent world within merge, time is suspended, and we suddenly feel there’s nothing we can’t do.

Buddhism teaches us to recognize these cycles of impermanence and have the courage to accept them.

The lotus flower is also symbolically prized in Buddhism because it blossoms in a muddy swamp, thereby signifying the emergence of our Buddha nature from the “swamp” of everyday desires and problems.

This idea that the power to achieve happiness lies totally within can be disconcerting. It entails a radical sense of responsibility.

Buddhism teaches that cause and effect are, in essence, simultaneous. The moment a cause is created, an effect is registered like a seed planted in the depths of life. While the effect is planted the same instant the cause is created, it may not appear instantly. The effect is only manifested when the right external circumstances arise.

According to the Buddhist view, life is eternal. It is believed to undergo successive incarnations, so that death is thought to be not so much the cessation of an existence as the beginning of a new one.

time. In fact, I think that’s what great mentors do; they excite within you a capacity to look at something in a new way, a way that resonates particularly within you.

Likewise, our lives, which are one with this universe, have also always existed in one form or another, following an unending cycle of birth and death, decline and renewal, subject to the physical laws of this universe.