Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet

If you can learn how to transform your anger, sadness, and despair, and if you can learn how to use loving speech and deep listening, you can become a real hero capable of offering happiness to many people.

It’s not by having a large Gross Domestic Product that society can be happy; it’s by producing compassion. You have the right to pursue economic growth, but not at the expense of life.

We live in the world and what is so-called “worldly” can become spiritual once we bring the energy of awakening to it.

In every one of us there is also a warrior. The warrior brings a determination to go ahead. You refuse to give up.

You allow it to be, you embrace it, and you help it transform.

To be happy is to be understood, to be loved, and to have the power to understand and love others.

Compassion can protect you better even than guns and bombs. With compassion in your heart, you will not react in fear or anger and you will attract much less danger to yourself.

you have to invent new ways of doing it, so that the breathing, walking, and sitting always brings you delight, solidity, and peace.

We should not be too sure of our ideas. We should be ready to let go of them. What we consider to be a misfortune may turn out to be a fortune later on. It depends on our way of handling the situation.