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Quote by Amy Neff

“No way out of this new reality, this all-consuming motherhood. Demanding more of me than I could have imagined, the saddest happiness I've ever felt, because she's already bigger today than yesterday, already a little less mine. I'm already missing the baby she is, desperate to remember moments I'm certain to forget.”

Quote by Amy Neff

Book:The Days I Loved You Most
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The Days I Loved You Most

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Amy Neff

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“Fifteen years ago, a business manager from the United States came to Plum Village to visit me. His conscience was troubled because he was the head of a firm that designed atomic bombs. I listened as he expressed his concerns. I knew if I advised him to quit his job, another person would only replace him. If he were to quit, he might help himself, but he would not help his company, society, or country. I urged him to remain the director of his firm, to bring mindfulness into his daily work, and to use his position to communicate his concerns and doubts about the production of atomic bombs. In the Sutra on Happiness, the Buddha says it is great fortune to have an occupation that allows us to be happy, to help others, and to generate compassion and understanding in this world. Those in the helping professions have occupations that give them this wonderful opportunity. Yet many social workers, physicians, and therapists work in a way that does not cultivate their compassion, instead doing their job only to earn money. If the bomb designer practises and does his work with mindfulness, his job can still nourish his compassion and in some way allow him to help others. He can still influence his government and fellow citizens by bringing greater awareness to the situation. He can give the whole nation an opportunity to question the necessity of bomb production. Many people who are wealthy, powerful, and important in business, politics, and entertainment are not happy. They are seeking empty things - wealth, fame, power, sex - and in the process they are destroying themselves and those around them. In Plum Village, we have organised retreats for businesspeople. We see that they have many problems and suffer just as others do, sometimes even more. We see that their wealth allows them to live in comfortable conditions, yet they still suffer a great deal. Some businesspeople, even those who have persuaded themselves that their work is very important, feel empty in their occupation. They provide employment to many people in their factories, newspapers, insurance firms, and supermarket chains, yet their financial success is an empty happiness because it is not motivated by understanding or compassion. Caught up in their small world of profit and loss, they are unaware of the suffering and poverty in the world. When we are not int ouch with this larger reality, we will lack the compassion we need to nourish and guide us to happiness. Once you begin to realise your interconnectedness with others, your interbeing, you begin to see how your actions affect you and all other life. You begin to question your way of living, to look with new eyes at the quality of your relationships and the way you work. You begin to see, 'I have to earn a living, yes, but I want to earn a living mindfully. I want to try to select a vocation not harmful to others and to the natural world, one that does not misuse resources.' Entire companies can also adopt this way of thinking. Companies have the right to pursue economic growth, but not at the expense of other life. They should respect the life and integrity of people, animals, plants and minerals. Do not invest your time or money in companies that deprive others of their lives, that operate in a way that exploits people or animals, and destroys nature. Businesspeople who visit Plum Village often find that getting in touch with the suffering of others and cultivating understanding brings them happiness. They practise like Anathapindika, a successful businessman who lived at the time of the Buddha, who with the practise of mindfulness throughout his life did everything he could to help the poor and sick people in his homeland.”

LifeHappinessPoliticsSexUnderstandingWorkWealthCompassionPowerBuddhismFameMindfulnessEntertainmentZenBusiness Management TrainingCompaniesSufferingsThich Nhat HanhBusinesspeople
Book:Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World
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“How do you recognise a Glaswegian in English literature? He's the cut-out figure who wields a razor-blade, gets moroculous drunk and never has a single, solitary 'thought' in his entire life. He beats his wife and beats his kids and beats his next door neighbour. And another striking thing; everybody from a Glaswegian or working-class background, everybody in fact from any regional part of Britain -none of them knew how to talk! Unlike the nice, stalwart upper-class English hero whose words on the page were always absolutely splendidly proper and pure and pristinely accurate whether in dialogue or without. Most interesting of all, for myself as a writer, the narrative belonged to them and them alone. They owned it. The place where thought and spiritual life exists.”

ThoughtNarrativeBritainSpiritual LifeWorking ClassUpper ClassEnglish LiteratureGlaswegians
Book:Some Recent Attacks: Essays Cultural & Political
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“Your thinking mind touched the fire and you burned yourself. I wanted this day to be an experience of total contact with the tattvas for both the body and the consciousness. There is only one way to receive the transmission. When I tell you to do something, do it immediately, without the least wavering of thought. That's it. Learn. Open your heart and act. Thought stops action. It perverts it into a calculated gesture stripped of all its grace, all its efficiency. To come back to an action that went wrong makes it worse. That's only to sink deeper into the mental. Remorse paralyzes, hesitation eliminates beauty from action, thought shrinks from the world."Devi seized my hand and, with lightening speed, flattened it against the coals. I let out a cry and instantly withdrew it. There wasn't a single mark on it or any sensation of burning. The coals, nevertheless, had been crushed under my palm. Devi looked at me with a sort of serene and mysterious half-smile that gave her face a full, radiant expression."Now you have touched the tattva of fire.”

ThoughtTantraShaivism36 Tattvas
Book:Tantric Quest: An Encounter with Absolute Love
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