Begin with yourself. There is no time to waste. It is your duty to do your part to bring God’s kingdom on earth.
Flood your mind with love. Look into the eyes of the other and embrace the person with whom you have quarrelled. Words are not necessary. Both will have their eyes flooded, and the joy of tears will wash away all quarrels.
Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible
If we only practice compassion at the mind level, we run a great risk of our compassion being just talk. As we know, talk is cheap. To develop true compassion we have to put our money where our mouth is.
The knowledge in your mind is immeasurably greater than all that you learnt, in all manner of ways, since birth, as a child, at school, in life, in the world, in your profession. This immeasurable knowledge sometimes percolates into the dream experience; sometimes it comes as intuitive ideas, as creative feelings.
Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts, only you can change them. You will want to change them when you realise that each thought creates according to its own nature. Therefore, start now to think only those thoughts that will bring you health and happiness.
Fasting in the monastic community is considered an ascetic practice, a “dhutanga” practice. Dhutanga means “to shake up” or “invigoration”. The Buddha, as is well known, emphasized moderation, the Middle Way that avoids extremes, in all things. Fasting is an additional method that one can take up, with supervision, for a time.
What parents inculcate in the child is permanently there because childhood is the most impressionable time of life.
Things that are real are given and received in silence. God has been everlastingly working in silence, unobserved, unheard, except by those who experience His infinite silence.
