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12 Pieces of Buddhist Wisdom That Will Transform Your Life By Matt Valentine

When I was little, my grandma had this little green Buddha statue.

It wasn’t a statue of the original Buddha, but rather a statue of what’s

generally considered Maitreya, the “future” Buddha,

usually represented as a hefty man1 sitting with his robe partly opened

and often with beads around his neck. This particular statue was a

pretty common image, one where his belly protruded out to reveal his

belly button.

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My grandma would always tell me, “Rub his tummy and you’ll have

good luck!” So naturally, as a kid, I rubbed his tummy every chance I

got. I was supposed to rub his bellybutton specifically, as I remember

trying to lay my finger on his tiny belly button and rub in a circle,

despite the fact that the belly button was a fraction of a millimeter in

diameter.

I, like many others in the West, grew up with a pretty distorted image

of Buddhism. I thought the Buddha was a god, that it was just a bunch

of charms and superstition for people trying to amass riches and other

misguided pursuits, and I thought meditation was only for people who

were interested in learning human levitation or something crazy like

that.

But I also, like many others, had heard many a number of insightful

Buddha quotes and sayings growing up that seemed to “pull” me in,

and almost always ring a response like, “Exactly!” or, “That’s so true!”

It’s because of this that despite all my negative misconceptions, I

continued to be interested in Buddhism growing up, until one day I

actually picked up a book, stopped learning from the collective

misconceptions of the Western consciousness, and began learning

from the real thing.

Buddhism holds within it a treasure trove of wisdom, not to mention

wisdom easily applicable in one’s everyday life and by all people of

various backgrounds, beliefs, and preferences.

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Thich Nhat Hanh has said, “Buddhism is made up of all non-Buddhist

elements.” And this couldn’t be truer. When it comes down to it,

Buddhism is really just a collection of methods and ways of realizing

the ultimate truths of this life, and the path to discovering true peace

and happiness.

Whether Buddhist, a collector of universal wisdom, or just someone

interested in finding practical ways to improve their life, this list

presents 12 powerful and potentially transformative pieces of Buddhist

wisdom which you can benefit from.

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12 Pieces of Buddhist Wisdom That Will Transform Your Life

1. Live with compassion

Compassion is one of the most revered qualities in Buddhism and

great compassion is a sign of a highly realized human being.

Compassion doesn’t just help the world at large, and it isn’t

just about the fact that it’s the right thing to do. Compassion,

and seeking to understand those around you, can transform your life

for a number of reasons.

First, self-compassion is altogether critical towards finding peace

within yourself. By learning to forgive yourself and accepting that

you’re human you can heal deep wounds bring yourself back from

difficult challenges.

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Next, we can often be tortured because of the fact that we don’t

completely understand why people do certain things.

Compassion is understanding the basic goodness in all people and

then seeking to discover that basic goodness in specific people.

Because of this, it helps you from going through the often mental

torture we experience because we don’t understand the actions of

others.

But even more than that, expressing compassion is the very act of

connecting wholeheartedly with others, and simply connecting in this

way can be a great source of joy for us.

The reasons for practicing compassion are numerous and powerful.

Seek to live in a way that you treat everyone you meet as you would

yourself. Once you begin trying to do this, it will seem altogether

impossible. But keep at it, and you’ll realize the full power of living

with compassion.

Workbook Exercise:

Think of someone you don’t like. This could be someone you hate,

someone you generally dislike, or someone whom you’ve only recently

had an argument with.

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Whoever they are, sit and meditate on this person. To do this, hold the

person in your mind. This of course isn’t possible, but you’re holding

as much of the person you know, your perception of the person, within

your mind.

Once you have this picture, do these three things:

1. Realize that this very picture in your head, this perception, is

what you’re drawing judgment based off of. Not off of the real

person, but off of your interpretation of that person.

2. Now think of something which that person does or has done

which you disapprove of and think of what logical reasons they

might have done or be doing said thing. If the person said

something hurtful to you, start throwing possibilities out there:

maybe something is stressing them badly and they don’t know

how to deal with it, maybe they had a tragedy recently or were

hurt and don’t know how to deal with the anger and sadness

they’re feeling, or something else. Whatever it is, start thinking of

specific possibilities that could be making them act this way.

Think of as many as you can.

3. Lastly, take a step back and review these many possibilities

which you’ve brainstormed. Realize that the reason for their

hurtful behavior is two things: 1) not originating from or because

of you, and 2) simply from something which they’re experiencing

which they don’t know how to deal with.

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Once you’ve done this, you’ll see that there’s more to the person than

meets the eye. Conflict usually involves one or more people using

anger to cause hurt, if you can realize that the reason this person acted

out with anger and aggression wasn’t because of you, but because of

something deep within themselves that they’re hurting from, you can

learn to cultivate a great amount of compassion for that person as well

as alleviate your own feelings of anger.

This is a very healing exercise which can be done at any time of day

and in any situation.

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2. Connect with others and nurture those connections

In Buddhism, a community of practitioners is called a “sangha”. A

sangha is a community of monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen who

practice together in peace towards the united “goal” of realizing

greater awakening, not only for themselves but for all beings.

The sangha is a principle which much of the world can greatly benefit

from. People come together in groups all the time, but it’s usually for

the purpose of creating monetary riches or obtaining substantial

power and rarely towards the united goal o1f attaining peace,

happiness, and realizing greater wisdom.

The principle of the sangha can be expressed in your own life in many

ways. The sangha is ultimately just one way of looking at life, through

the lens of the individual “expressions” of the totality.

By living in a way that you’re fully aware of the power of connecting

with others, whether it’s one person or a group of 100, and seeking to

nurture those relationships in the appropriate way, you can

transform your life in ways that will pay dividends

for years to come.

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Workbook Exercise:

Have one mindful conversation every day for the next 7 days.

To do this, when you have a conversation with, say, your best friend,

be fully present for the conversation by putting down your phone,

turning to look them straight in their eye and turning off and away

from any additional potential distractions.

Be fully present for the words they’re speaking and the thoughts

arising in your mind as a result of their words. If you speak during the

conversation, speak carefully and compassionately, staying mindful of

where you stand or sit and the fact that you’re right here in this

moment having a conversation with your best friend.

One of the most powerful things we can do to improve our

relationships is simply to be fully present for the other person.

Attention and awareness are your primary tools in both connecting

with and nurturing others. Use them wisely.

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3. Wake up One of the most powerful points on this list, the power of simply living

in a way that you’re fully awake to every moment of your life pretty

much couldn’t be exaggerated even if I tried.

Mindfulness, greater awareness, paying attention, whatever you want

to call it- it changes every facet of your life and in every

way. It’s as simple as that.

Strive to live fully awake to each moment of your daily life and

overcome your greatest personal struggles, find a great sense of peace

and joy, and realize the greatest lessons life can teach you as a result of

living fully awake to the present moment.

Workbook Exercise:

Mindfulness is the primary tool used in realizing any level of

awakening. This was the foundation of the Buddha’s teaching.

Mindfulness can be practiced any time of day and in any situation. In

the beginning, mindfulness is a rather progressive practice.

By that I mean you’ll begin with a basic mindful breathing exercise or

something like it and gradually expand to more and different varied

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mindfulness practices such as mindful eating, driving, walking, and

conversing like the one I mentioned in the last workbook exercise.

To practice mindful breathing, you don’t have to sit cross-legged or do

anything special. Simply stop what you’re doing and turn your

awareness to your breath. Don’t attempt to control your breath, simply

observe it.

You might be surprised to see how short and inconsistent your breath

is. This is normal, we often breathe this way and don’t even notice it.

This greatly affects how we feel and act, and so mindful breathing in

this can completely transform how we feel on a day-to-day basis.

Count each in breath and out breath as one. So breathe in – one,

breathe out - two, breathe in – three, etc. Do this until you get to 10 or

until you become distracted by a thought, feeling, or sensation. Hint:

you won’t get to 10.

In the beginning, it will be very difficult to count to 10 like this without

getting becoming interrupted. But these interruptions aren’t a bad

thing, so make sure not to label them as such.

When you notice a distraction arise, be it a thought, feeling, or

sensation- and they will be plentiful- simply acknowledge it without

thinking anything about it (accept it openly as you would a loved one

coming into your arms) and then gently direct you awareness back to

your breath.

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For a full-fledged, thorough, and yet simple and straightforward guide

to creating a daily practice of mindfulness and meditation I’d suggest

my book, Zen for Everyday Life.

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4. Live deeply To live deeply, in a way that you become keenly aware of the precious

nature of life, is to begin down the path of true peace and happiness.

Why? Because to live in this way is to gradually become aware of the

true nature of the world. This will happen essentially in “sections” of

the whole, such as realizing your interconnectedness (you begin to see

how everything is connected to everything else) and impermanence

(you begin to see how everything is ever-changing, constantly dying

only to be reborn in another form).

These realizations are the bread and butter of Buddhism and all

spiritual practice. These “sections of the whole” are fragments of the

ultimate realization, ways for us to understand that which can’t be

fully understood in the traditional sense.

By living in a way that you seek to realize these various “qualities of

the ultimate” you find greater and greater peace in realizing the

natural way of things. This cultivates in us the ability to savor

every moment of life, to find peace in even the most

mundane activities, as well as the ability to transform your

typically “negative” experiences into something altogether

nourishing and healing.

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Workbook Exercise:

Pick an object, any object. Preferably an object you have near you and

can sit down and look at.

Think about that object deeply, imagining the huge amount of total

work- of manpower, machine power, technology, knowledge, and

time- that it took to bring that object in front of you as it is in that

moment.

Continue further and imagine what that object was before it was the

object. If it’s a machine imagine all the various pieces which had to be

created, manufactured, and pieced together in order to create the

object in front of you.

Now imagine what allowed that object to come to be, realize that the

object was a very part of the world around you before it took the form

of the machine in front of you. Take this meditation as far as it will go,

eventually arriving at the realization that this object was once in the

soil, in the sky, and in the ocean in a very real and tangible way.

You can meditate on any object in this way, so go wild! This

meditation can be the source of significant insights which lead to a

great sense of peace, joy, and a reverence for life.

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5. Change yourself, change the world

Buddhists understand that you can hardly help another before you

help yourself. But this isn’t referring to you gaining power or riches

before you can help others, or living in a way that you ignore others.

This is mostly referring to the fact that because we’re all

interconnected, by you helping yourself you create an exponentially

positive effect on the rest of the world.

If you want to make an impact on the world, don’t falsely

convince yourself that it’s “you or them”1. You don’t need to

drag yourself through the mud to help those around you. If you do

this, you’ll greatly hamper your ability to create a positive impact.

At the deepest level of understanding, by making it about you you’re

also making it about them because you know there’s no separating

“you” and “them”.

Take care of yourself and seek to be more than just a help, but an

example of how to live for others to follow and you’ll create waves of

exponential possibility that inspires others to do the same.

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Workbook Exercise:

This entire workbook is about working on yourself, which in turn helps

others in the ways described above. So take a moment to meditate on

exactly how by changing each of these things you change the world

around you.

By living with compassion, how do you help others?

By connecting with others and nurturing your relationships, how do

you help others?

By waking up and realizing your true nature, how do you help others?

By living deeply, seeing the interconnected nature of all things and

how what you do affects all things and how what all things do affects

you, how do you help others?

You get the idea, continue to do this for the remaining points in order

to fully realize just how changing your own life will change the world.

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6. Embrace death Death is an often taboo topic in Western society. We do everything we

can to not only avoid the subject, but pretend that it doesn’t even exist.

The reality is, this is really unfortunate and in no way helps us lead

better lives. Becoming keenly aware of your own impermanence and

deeply understanding the nature of death with regards to our

interconnectedness are both things which can help us find great peace.

In Buddhism, students in many sects at one point or another

“meditate on the corpse” as it were (a practice which is said to have

originated at least as far back as the Buddha’s lifetime).

This is literally what it sounds like. They meditate on the image of a

corpse slowing decomposing and imagine that process through to its

end, eventually resulting in a deep and profound realization on the

true nature of death.

That might sound a little intense to you, but the truth is, if you live

you’re entire life acting as if you’re never going to die or

ignoring your own impermanence then you won’t ever be

able to find true peace within yourself.

You don’t necessarily have to meditate on the image of a corpse, but

simply opening up to yourself about death so that you’re no longer

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shielding it from your mind (which you’re likely doing unconsciously,

as that’s how most of us were brought up in the West) can begin to be

a great source of peace and help you appreciate the many joys in your

everyday life.

A true appreciation for life can never be fully realized until you come

face-to-face with your own impermanence. But once you do this, the

world opens up in a new and profound way.

Workbook Exercise:

I’m not going to ask you to meditate on the image of a corpse, so don’t

worry. But I will ask that you meditate on the idea of death itself.

Imagine you’re viewing the events leading up to your own death and

beyond from a third-person perspective, looking down upon the

various events.

Imagine you getting sick, going through treatment, getting worse,

finally passing, your funeral, and then take this as far as it will go. By

that I mean meditate on the idea of being dead itself. Specifically, I

want you to meditate on the idea of going to sleep and never waking

up. When it comes down to it, that’s really what we’re afraid of when

we think of death.

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Meditate on this for as long as you feel is necessary, until you crack

through your old beliefs about death and begin realizing the truth

about death itself. There’s no telling how long this will take, but

meditations such as this should be taken as far as they can go in order

to fully realize the insights which can come from them.

If this gets a little intense and you find it difficult to move forward, I’m

always here to talk to. You can email me here and I can work you

through what you’re feeling and attempt to help you move beyond any

barriers you may have arrived at.

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7. Your food is (very) special

Meditative practice offers the ability to transform every experience in

your everyday life, which I discuss in my forthcoming book Zen for

Everyday Life, and food is one of those everyday experiences which is

greatly transformed and often in very interesting and rewarding ways.

Buddhist meditative practice, particularly mindfulness and

contemplation, helps you realize the precious nature of the food in

front of you. Indeed, with how integral a part food plays in our

lives, to transform our relationship with food is to

transform a key aspect of our entire lives, both now and in the

future.

By contemplating on the food in front of us, for example, we can come

to realize the vast system of interconnectedness that is our life, and

how our food coming to be on our dinner plate as it is depended on

numerous elements coming to be.

This helps us to deepen our relationship with food, cultivate a deep

sense of gratitude before each meal, and learn to respect the delicate

but ever-pressing balance that is life.

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Workbook Exercise:

For this exercise, you can do very much the same as we did in #4, but

in this case meditating on a piece of food. I tend to pick whole foods

like fruits and vegetables because they’re easier to visualize. You can

pick whatever you’d like though.

When it comes to food, imagine where the food came from and what

the food was before it sprouted into the fruit, vegetable, or what it is.

Think about where it came from before then and what made it what it

is.

This can be a rather involved exercise, so you might not want to do it

before every meal, but it’s very beneficial to do regularly.

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8. Understand the nature of giving

Giving is more than the act of giving Christmas and Birthday gifts, it’s

also about those gifts which we give each and every day which we don’t

typically see as gifts at all.

Buddhists hold a very deep understanding of the nature of giving,

particularly in that life is a constant play between the act of

giving and receiving. This doesn’t just help us find peace in

understanding the way of the world around us, but helps us realize the

amazing gifts we all have within us that we can give others in every

moment, such as our love, compassion, and presence.

Workbook Exercise:

Think about what you do on an everyday basis and how that is a form

of giving:

Work

Home life

Interacting in various ways with friends, family, and strangers

Just being you

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By taking a moment to really think of your life from the perspective

that everything we do is a constant relationship between gift, giver,

and receiver we can transform our everyday lives from that of “just

another day” to one of infinite fascination, gratitude, and joy.

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9. Work to disarm the ego

The easiest way to sum up all “spiritual” practice is this: spirituality is

the act of coming in touch with the ultimate reality or the ground of

being, and as a result spiritual practice is the act of overcoming those

obstacles which keep us from realizing that.

The primary obstacle in our way? The ego.

To put it short and sweet, the reason the ego is the major obstacle in

spiritual practice, or simply the practice of finding true peace and

happiness (whatever you choose to call it, it’s all the same), is

because it’s very function is to pull you away from the

ground of your being by convincing you that you’re this

separate self.

The process of unraveling the ego can take time, as it’s something

which has been with us, intertwined with us, for years. But it’s

infinitely rewarding and altogether necessary if we want to realize our

best life.

Workbook Exercise:

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There’s about as many ways to begin disarming or dissipating the ego

as there is colors in the color spectrum, so it will largely be up to you

as to how you go about doing this.

The most basic way to begin disarming the ego is by simply asking the

question, “Who is [your name]?” So if your name is Janice you can ask

yourself, “Who is Janice?” It might seem a little funny to ask yourself a

question like that, but it’s effective in getting you to turn inward and

begin really questioning who the “you” is that you consider and

visualize yourself to be.

Really, who are you? Are you just a body, a system of veins, arteries,

intestines, organs, nerves, and a brain that happen to constitute the

thinking and feeling you that goes to work every day, loves your

family, and has dreams and desires?

Or are you more than just that? Is your body you? Is it not you? Is it

finite, or does it really expand outward beyond what you can see? Are

all 5 of your senses all that can be sensed? Is there more (think heat

vision) which we can’t typically see with just our eyes and other

senses?

Start asking yourself as many of these seemingly odd questions as you

can, and really delve deeply here.

Question everything, and draw no conclusions. It doesn’t matter what

you think about what insights you come to, what matters is what

happens right in front of your eyes and within the present moment

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itself. Experience everything in mindfulness and draw no judgment

either way.

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10. Remove the 3 poisons

Life is filled with vices, things which attempt to bind us to

unwholesome ways of living and therefore do the very opposite of

cultivate peace, joy, and greater realization in our lives. Among these,

the 3 poisons are some of the most powerful. The 3 poisons are:

1. Greed

2. Hatred

3. Delusion

Together, these 3 poisons are responsible for the majority of the pain

and suffering we experience as a collective species. It’s perfectly

normal to be affected by each of these poisons throughout your life, so

don’t knock yourself for falling for them.

Instead, simply accept that they’re something you’re

experiencing and begin working to remove them from your

life. This can take time, but it’s a key aspect on the path towards

realizing true peace and happiness.

Workbook Exercise:

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Your mindfulness practice will allow you to notice when you’re

succumbing to the three poisons. Keep in mind these three poisons

cover a wide range of topics.

Greed isn’t just monetary greed but the general feverish desiring of

things which we so often fall into. Ultimately this means attaching

ourselves to the idea that we need to acquire more in order to cure

ourselves, when in reality this cure is a poison that just continues to

make us suffer. Be mindful of when you desire something, anything,

and simply observe that desire without yet interjecting. Once you’ve

done so you can see with clarity how that desire is effecting your

thoughts and actions and be able to make a change.

Hatred covers anger, aggression, envy, and the like. Be mindful of any

moment in which you feel dislike for another or get angry and ask

yourself why these feelings have arisen. As always, go deep here and

don’t just readily accept to first answer that arises.

Delusion refers to wrong perceptions and is about identifying those

things which keep us from seeing with clarity. Here, you should begin

to become mindful of your opinions about things, particularly your

strong opinions, and simply observe your feelings with mindfulness.

What does how you feel about the topic tell you? This sense of conflict

is a good identifier that you should look more closely at whatever it is.

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11. Right livelihood We should all strive to work and make our living in a way that’s more

“conscious” or aware. This generally means not selling harmful items

such as guns, drugs, and services that harm other people, but it goes

deeper than that.

There’s ultimately two aspects to this: making a living by doing

something which doesn’t inhibit your own ability to realize peace and

making a living doing something which doesn’t inhibit others ability to

realize peace.

Facing this can lead to some interesting situations for some people,

and as Thich Nhat Hanh has mentioned this is a collective effort as

opposed to a solely personal one (the butcher isn’t a butcher only

because he decided to be, but because there is a demand from people

for meat to be neatly packaged and made available for them to be

purchased from supermarkets), but you should strive to do your best.

Following the teaching on right livelihood can help you realize the

harmful effect that your own work is having on you and therefore

coming up with a solution can result in a largely positive shift in your

life as a whole. Only you can decide if a change needs to happen

though.

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Whatever the case, seek to make a living doing something that

promotes the peace and happiness of yourself and those around you as

much as possible.

Workbook Exercise:

Become mindful of how you feel while at work and begin

contemplating how you feel about your work in general and how your

work affects the world around you.

Doing so is the foundation of discovering whether you need to make a

change or not. If something makes you feel uncomfortable, explore the

feelings further.

If you discover that your livelihood is less-than preferable, and that

you can and should make a change, do so carefully. Don’t jump to

leaving your job or closing your business though, understand that

what’s really important here is understanding deeply how what you do

and what your company does affects all living and non-living beings.

You can’t always do something about your position, but you can

become more aware and compassionate and seek to do things to offset

the imbalance.

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12. Realize non-attachment

This is a difficult point to put into so few words, but a profound one I

felt would be greatly beneficial to mention nonetheless.

To realize non-attachment in a Buddhist sense doesn’t

mean to abandon your friends and family and live alone for

the rest of your life, never truly living again just so that you

don’t become attached to these desires.

Non-attachment refers to living in a way that you exist in the natural

flow of life and generally living a typical modern life, building a family,

working, etc., while simultaneously not being attached to any of these

things. It simply means to live in a way that you’ve become aware of

and accepted the impermanence of all things in this life and live in a

way that you’re ever-aware of this fact.

It’s perfectly normal for a Zen student in Japan, once having

completed his training, to actually de-robe and go “back into the

world” so to speak. This is because, once they’ve reached this level of

realization, they see the beauty in all things and are compelled to live

fully absorbed in all the beauty and wonders of this life. From this

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point on, they can truly “live life to the fullest”, while not clinging to

any of these things.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean that you stop feeling emotions. On

the contrary, these emotions are welcomed and expected, and fully

experienced with mindfulness in the moment of their impact. But this

is simply the natural course of things.

Once these emotions subside though, and when we have no mental

formations or obstructions to block our path, a natural healing process

takes place that heals the wound and allows us to continue on living in

peace and joy instead of dragging us down into darkness.

Strive to live free, fully aware of the wonders of life and in the very

midst of all of those wonders, while not clinging to any of it. To do this

is to realize the greatest joy life has to offer.

Workbook Exercise: For this exercise, I want you to ask yourself one simple

question: “What can I not live without?” And I don’t mean what do you need in order to live, the basic

necessities, I mean what are those things you love or like too much that you could never see being able to give them up or be without. This is a simple exercise which can help shed light on some of the attachments you hold.

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Keep in mind though that attachment, and the process of letting go, could be an entire book in itself. This will be a process, and includes everything from material vices to intellectual ideas. For more information on the subject I’d suggest reading The Beginner’s Guide to Letting Go and Becoming Enlightened Through Non-Attachment.

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More from Matt Valentine and Buddhaimonia…

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Zen for Everyday Life

Zen for Everyday Life: How to Find Peace and Happiness in the Chaos of Everyday Life is my complete guide to living moment to moment with mindfulness and presence. In Zen for Everyday Life, you’ll learn how to mindfully:

Sit

Walk

Stop

Eat

Drive

Arrive

Rest

Love

Communicate

…and much more.

Zen for Everyday Life will also give you the tools you need to really make the practice a way of life, or a habit, and it will give you the tools you need to continue to maintain and nurture your daily mindfulness practice moving forward, guide you through the various myths and misconceptions that keep us from happiness, and show you step-by-step how to truly deepen your moment-to-moment experience of daily life. You can learn more about Zen for Everyday Life by clicking the link below:

Click Here to Learn More About Zen for Everyday Life

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Living Zen Spirit…Coming in January

My next book is officially titled,

“Living Zen Spirit” and it will be out this coming January of 2016. Living Zen Spirit is about living with the spirit of Zen, true Zen practice at its very essence stripped of rituals and formalities, within modern daily life. More than Zen Buddhist practice, it’s about the universal qualities that make up the broader sense of Zen, something applicable to anyone and everyone no matter your spiritual tradition (or lack-there-of). This is without a doubt the most complete and extensive guide to daily living that I’ve ever written.

If you’d like to be notified when the book is available for pre-order, as well as get some cool exclusive book bonuses from here until release, click below (or on the book image), fill in your email on the notification page, and you’ll be good to go:

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