As you walk, you touch the ground mindfully, and every step can bring you solidity and joy and freedom. Freedom from your regret concerning the past, and freedom from your fear about the future.

You have to learn how to help a wounded child while still practicing mindful breathing. You should not allow yourself to get lost in action. Action should be meditation at the same time.

That is why those who are not capable of being there in the present moment, they don't really live their life - they live like dead people.

Each thought, each action in the sunlight of awareness becomes sacred.

I would not be happy if I could not become a monk. They call it the beginner's mind - the deep intention, the deepest desire that a person may have. And I can say that until this day, this beginner's mind is still alive in me.

Recently, one friend asked me, "How can I force myself to smile when I am filled with sorrow? It isn't natural." I told her she must be able to smile to her sorrow, because we are more than our sorrow. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on then we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We can not let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to seize the situation in our hand, to recover our own sovereignty.

How do you want to create peace, if there is no peace inside yourselves?