Some Truths for Living....

• Life is suffering
• Suffering is due to attachment
• Attachment can be overcome
• There is a path for accomplishing this

Dhammapada 83

• The good renounce (attachment for) everything.
• The virtuous do not prattle with a yearning for pleasures.
• The wise show no elation or depression when touched by happiness or sorrow.

Mindfulness

• Live in the present. Be conscious of all this is happening now.
• Cultivate "skillful" thoughts. Avoid unskillful ones.
• Be mindful of thoughts from your ego. When you catch your ego making judgements, stop, and let your true brain observe and think mindfully.
• Mindfulness brings certainty and cures confusion.

Instructions for Life

• Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
• When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
• Follow the three Rs:
• Respect for self
• Respect for others and
• Responsibility for all your actions.
• Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
• Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
• Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
• When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
• Spend some time alone every day.
• Dedicate yourself to the truth.
• Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
• Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
• Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
• A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your success.
• In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
• Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
• Be gentle with the earth.
• Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
• Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
• Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

From "The Art of Happiness"

• Examine the underlying basis of your relationships
• You can reduce your suffering by accepting the noble truths and knowing that you are not alone in suffering
• Learn how to tolerate suffering, it is a natural state of your existence
• Avoid self-inflicted suffering:
• Attachment
• Being overly sensitive
• Excessive guilt can induce relentless self punishment
• By dwelling on our problems, we perpetuate them

Contentment

• Contentment is a moral obligation to your family.
• Contentment takes work. Unhappiness is easy.
• Make every decision with your long term contentment in mind. Avoid decisions which make you happy in the short term only.
• Look at what you have. There will always be something missing, but focussing on it is destructive. Avoid looking at the minor flaw in a beautiful painting.
• Unhappiness = Image - Reality. Either you change your images or change your reality to be more content.

Wisdom For the Journey

• Worry is always based on an ego-centered goal of some kind. Frustration of an ego-goal is a good thing.
• Pace yourself patiently when facing pain or suffering. They aren't going anywhere.
• If your first priority is to make an impact, then you will never make a self.
• Big decisions are not made mentally. They drop into place by a 'click'.. then you know.
• Take all of the fear out of a decision. Then what would you do?
• Patience with the self is a source of patience with others.

Click here for some more contemporary thoughts, in the form of lyrics to some insightful modern songs.