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nithesh_123's review against another edition
4.0
The book says that our fundamental fears originate from the fear of death. The book was soothing to some extent. But sometimes, I felt it was out of touch with reality. I will have to pull out my copy of the book to write a better review (later).
officialgrittynhl's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.75
suesklansky's review
5.0
Reading this while sheltering in place during coronavirus is a balm for my soul.
elaichipod's review against another edition
informative
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
4.75
He has done it again.
- If you are grounded in the present moment, you can bring the future into the present to have a deep look without losing yourself in anxiety and uncertainty. If you are truly present and know how to take care of the present moment as best you can, you are doing your best for the future already.
- We can’t take anything or anyone else with us in our death. Yet every day we strive to accumulate more and more money, knowledge, fame, and everything else. Even when we reach sixty or seventy years of age, we keep grasping for more knowledge, money, fame, and power.
- The Buddha once told the monastics to look up at the sky at night to see the moon, and he asked them whether they saw how great the moon’s happiness was as it traveled in the vast open space. As practitioners we should allow ourselves to be as free as the moon. If we are attached to obtaining more and more wealth, fame, power, and sex, we lose our freedom.
- “Breathing in, I know that I bring nothing with me except my thoughts, words, and deeds. Breathing out, only my actions come with me.” All our cherished belongings and loved ones we must leave behind, but our karma, the fruit of our actions, always follows us. We never can escape it. Karma is the ground on which we stand. We have only one foundation, and that is our karma. We have no other ground. We will receive the fruits of any act we have done, whether wholesome or unwholesome.
- Invite your fear into consciousness, and smile through it; every time you smile through your fear, it will lose some of its strength. If you try to run away from your pain, there is no way out. Only by looking deeply into the nature of your fear can you find the way out.
- When I lost my mother, I suffered a lot. The day she died, I wrote in my journal, “The greatest misfortune of my life has happened.” I grieved her death for more than a year. Then one night, I was sleeping in my hermitage—a hut that lay behind a temple, halfway up a hill covered with tea plants in the highlands of Vietnam. I had a dream about my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, with her hair flowing down around her shoulders. It was so pleasant to sit and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up, I had a very strong feeling that I had never lost my mother. The sense that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just that: an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother was still alive in me and would always be. Walking slowly in that soft light through the rows of tea plants, I observed that my mother was indeed still with me. My mother was the moonlight caressing me as she had so often done, very gentle, very sweet. Every time my feet touched the earth, I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine alone but a living continuation of my mother and father, my grandparents and great-grandparents, and of all my ancestors. These feet I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil. From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, or feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet, to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.
- But the truth is, it’s impossible for a cloud to die.
- The past is not me. I am not limited by the past. The present is not me. I am not limited by the present. The future is not me. I am not limited by the future.
- If you go back to the island of yourself, you will see the teacher in you.
- You bring your mind to the present moment and rest in awareness of your body. It’s like soaking mung beans in water. You don’t need to force the water to enter the mung bean. You let the mung bean be in the water, and slowly, slowly it goes in. Gradually the mung bean gets saturated, swollen and tender. The same is true for you. Letting go, the tension will be released slowly, slowly, slowly.
- When you look at a tree during a storm, you see that its branches and leaves are swaying back and forth violently in the strong wind. You have the impression that the tree will not be able to withstand the storm. You are like that when you’re gripped by a strong emotion. Like the tree, you feel vulnerable. You can break at any time. But if you direct your attention down to the trunk of the tree, you see things differently. You see that the tree is solid and deeply rooted in the ground. If you focus your attention on the trunk of the tree, you realize that because the tree is firmly rooted in the soil, it cannot be blown away. Bring your focus down to your navel—that is the trunk, the most solid part of yourself—and practice mindful breathing. Become aware of the rise and fall of your abdomen.
- The kingdom of heaven can be hidden by a cloud of ignorance or by a tempest of anger, violence, and fear. But if we practice mindfulness, it’s possible to be aware that even if the weather is very foggy, cloudy, or stormy, the blue sky is always there for us above the clouds. Mindfulness practice allows us to recognize the presence of the cloud, the fog, and the storms. But it also helps us recognize the blue sky behind it all. We have enough intelligence, courage, and stability to help the blue sky reveal itself again. When we breathe in and out mindfully, we help the Pure Land reveal itself. In our daily lives, every single moment we can do something to help the kingdom of God reveal itself. Don’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed by despair. You can make good use of every minute and every hour of your daily life.
- The eighth exercise is to calm and release the tension in the painful feeling—to embrace, soothe, and bring relief to the feeling: “Breathing in, I calm my mental formations. Breathing out, I calm my mental formations.”
- "Breathing in, I liberate my mind. Breathing out, I liberate my mind. Breathing in, I observe the disappearance of desire. Breathing out, I observe the disappearance of desire.”
berthe33's review
5.0
The tools are within us already to dissipate fear, anger anxiety. We just need a holy man Like Thich Nhat Hanh to show us the way and he does...patiently and mindfully. This book is a real revelation. Should be a handbook for life.