The way you speak to others can offer them joy, happiness, self-confidence, hope, trust, and enlightenment.  Mindful speaking is a deep practice.

If you are motivated by loving-kindness and compassion, there are many ways to bring happiness to others right now, starting with kind speech.

The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other.  We “go inside” their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering.  Shallow observations as an outsider are not enough to see their suffering.  We must become one with the subject of our observation.

It’s clear that to love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice.  Love is truly a practice.

Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish.  If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself – if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself – it is very difficult to take care of another person.

Training is needed in order to love properly; and to be able to give happiness and joy, you must practice deep looking directed toward the other person you love.  Because if you do not understand this person, you cannot love properly.  Understanding is the essence of love.  If you cannot understand, you cannot love.

Use your time wisely.  Every moment, produce beautiful thoughts, loving-kindness, forgiveness. Say beautiful things, inspire, forgive, act physically to protect and help.

When we speak, we want to say something sweet, but we don’t have something sweet because something is ordering us from deep down to say something unkind.  We want to open our hearts to people, but we can’t do it, because we are being ordered around by the sufferings we have concealed deep in our consciousness.

Smiling is very important.  If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace.  It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace.  It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.

True love is made up of understanding.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it.  This is the most basic kind of peace work.

Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize:  a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes.  All is a miracle.

Life can be found only in the present moment.  The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.

Every one of us needs a home.  The world needs a home.  There are so many young people who are homeless.  They may have a building to live in, but they are homeless in their hearts.  That is why the most important practice of our time is to give each person a home.

When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept.  We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over.  He does not need punishment; he needs help.  That’s the message he is sending.

Do not be afraid to love. Without love, life is impossible. We have to learn the art of loving. Love by the way you walk, the way you sit, the way you eat. Learn to love yourself and others properly.