Learning

Just as heat dispels cold, loving-kindness counters anger. We need to learn how to counter our various emotions. Distraction is just a temporary measure. The longer lasting remedy is to be able to see positive qualities in something or someone you otherwise see as negative. Since there is rarely any justification for destructive emotions, we need to become aware of what gives rise to them and what the antidotes are

We live in a materialistic world that pays insufficient attention to human values. We seek satisfaction in material things instead of warm-heartedness. But human beings are social animals. We need friendship and that depends on trust. Building trust requires concern for others and defending their rights, not doing them harm. Friendship is directly linked to warm-heartedness, which is also good for our physical health.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

There are all these moments you think you won’t survive. And then you survive.

Have you ever just looked at someone and thought, “I really love you”. They’re just talking or humming or watching a movie or reading a book or laughing or something, and there’s something about them in that moment that makes you think, “I just really love you.

Soon we will be strangers. No, we can never be that. Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history.

It’s exciting when you find parts of yourself in someone else.

Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.