There are always some people who are ready to embrace a doctrine, a notion, a dogma, and they miss the real teaching.

To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.

The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.

First, let us light the torch of our awareness and learn again how to drink tea, eat, wash dishes, walk, sit, drive, and work in awareness. We do not have to be swept along by circumstances. We are not just a leaf or a log in a rushing river. With awareness, each of our daily acts takes on a new meaning, and we discover that we are more than machines, that our activities are not just mindless repetitions. We find that life is a miracle, the universe is a miracle, and we too are a miracle.

Each moment you are alive is a gem. It needs you to breathe gently for the miracles to be displayed.

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.

At first glance, that might seem a little silly: why put so much stress on a simple thing? But that's precisely the point.