We are always running, and it has become a habit. We struggle all the time, even during our sleep. We are at war with ourselves, and we can easily start a war with others.

There are many ways to calm a negative energy without suppressing or fighting it. You recognize it, you smile to it, and you invite something nicer to come up and replace it; you read some inspiring words, you listen to a piece of beautiful music, you go somewhere in nature, or you do some walking meditation.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

The practice of Zen is to eat, breathe, cook, carry water, and scrub the toilet — to infuse every act of body, speech, and mind — with mindfulness, to illuminate every leaf and pebble, every heap of garbage, every path that leads to our mind's return home.

"I am breathing in and liberating my mind. I am breathing out and liberating my mind." One practices like this.

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.

When we recognise the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some kind of connection; love is born.