Whatever good work you do, you’re bound to face problems and obstacles. Therefore, it’s important to check your motivation. It helps to be truthful and honest. If what you do is good for others, it’ll be good for you too. Once you know your goal can be reached, you should try to follow it through to the end. Then, even if you don’t achieve it, at least you’ll have no cause for regret.
Compassion suits our physical condition, whereas anger, fear and distrust are harmful to our well-being. Therefore, just as we learn the importance of physical hygiene to physical health, to ensure healthy minds, we need to learn some kind of emotional hygiene.
Without freedom, creativity cannot flourish. The right to freedom is crucial to progress in any society; and the context is having a sense of global responsibility.
A sense of contentment is crucial to being happy. Physical health, material wealth and friends contribute to this, but contentment governs our relations with them all.
I consider myself to be just one among 7 billion human beings. If I were to think of myself as different from others, or as something special, it would create a barrier between us. What makes us the same is that we all want to lead happy lives and gather friends around us. And friendship is based on trust, honesty and openness.
Because of our intelligence we human beings are uniquely capable not only of creating problems, but of doing so on a large scale. Therefore, it is important that we use our intelligence in constructive ways. That’s what warm-heartedness and concern for others lead us to do.
True compassion is not just an emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason. Therefore, our compassion for others does not change even if they behave negatively. Our feelings of responsibility for others gives rise to a wish to help them actively overcome their problems.
If your mental attitude is positive, even when threats abound, you won’t lose your inner peace. On the other hand, if your mind is negative, marked by fear, suspicion and feelings of helplessness, even among your best friends, in a pleasant atmosphere and comfortable surroundings, you won’t be happy.
Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents. Later, when we are sick and old, we are again dependent on the kindness of others. Since we are so dependent on others at the beginning and end of our lives, how could it be that we would neglect kindness towards others in the middle?
Change in the world comes from individuals, from the inner peace in individual hearts. Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water, the actions of individuals can have far-reaching effects.
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