A Quote by Kathleen McDonald
Overcoming attachment does not mean becoming cold and indifferent. On the contrary, it means learning to have relaxed control over our mind through understanding the real causes of happiness and fulfillment, and this enables us to enjoy life more and suffer less.
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Everybody wants to be on the mountaintop, but if you'll remember, mountaintops are rocky and cold. There is no growth on the top of a mountain. Sure, the view is great, but what's a view for? A view just gives us a glimpse of our next destination-our next target. But to hit that target, we must come off the mountain, go through the valley, and begin to climb the next slope. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life's next peak.
Americanization means the process of becoming an American. It means civic incorporation, becoming a part of the polity - becoming one of us. But that does not mean conformity. We are more than a melting pot, we are a kaleidoscope, where every turn of history refracts new light on the old promise.
Certainly I believe that God gave us life for happiness, not misery. Humanity, I am sure, will never be made lazy or indifferent by an excess of happiness. Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. Happiness should be a means of accomplishment, like health, not an end in itself.
the tragedy of an attachment is that if its object is not attained it causes unhappiness. But if it is attained, it does not cause happiness – it merely causes a flash of pleasure followed by weariness, and it is always accompanied, of course, by the anxiety that you may lose the object of your attachment.
Nonviolence means an ocean of compassion. It means shedding from us every trace of ill will for others. It does not mean abjectness or timidity, or fleeing in fear. It means, on the contrary, firmness of mind and courage, a resolute spirit.
In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves an experience of our own suffering is less intense. What does this tell us? Firstly, because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others' happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure that we do not harm others. Secondly, it tells us that genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others' happiness.
True nonattachment is understanding that you are fundamentally attached to everything and, through that understanding, dropping your attachment to the view that you are detached from that which you encounter. At the same time, real nonattachment means not clinging to things or people. It means dropping the idea that if you don't have this or if you can't get that, your life will be a catastrophe.
Every day we touch what is wrong, and, as a result, we are becoming less and less healthy. That is why we have to learn to practice touching what is not wrong—inside us and around us. When we get in touch with our eyes, our heart, our liver, our breathing, and our non-toothache and really enjoy them, we see that the conditions for peace and happiness are already present.
Understanding that everything is impermanent, that happiness is transformed into suffering, and that all phenomena are lacking reality in themselves and are only projections of our mind, will permit us to counteract the first hindrance to meditation, that is, our attachment to this world.
No matter how many possessions we acquire, they will not provide us with any lasting happiness and freedom. On the contrary, it is often our pursuit of material possessions that causes our problems. If we want ultimate happiness and freedom from suffering, we must engage in the supreme practices of training the mind. There is no other way.
The cause of happiness and the solution to our problems do not lie in knowledge of material things. Happiness and suffering are states of mind, and so their main causes cannot be found outside the mind. If we want to be truly happy and free from suffering, we must learn how to control our mind.
Love and intimacy are at the roots of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing...I am not aware of any other factor in medicine- not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery- that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness and premature death from all causes.
Most people suffer in love because of attachment. Attachment means we're interested in a net return on our investment.
This earth is not our home. We are away at school, trying to master the lessons of "the great plan of happiness" so we can return home and know what it means to be there. Over and over the Lord tells us why the plan is worth our sacrifice - and His. Eve called it "the joy of our redemption." Jacob called it "that happiness which is prepared for the saints." Of necessity, the plan is full of thorns and tears - His and ours. But because He and we are so totally in this together, our being "at one" with Him in overcoming all opposition will itself bring us "incomprehensible joy."
Time passes cold and indifferent over us; it knows nothing of our joys or sorrows; it leads us with ice-cold hand deeper and deeper into the labyrinth.
Our obsession with speed, with cramming more and more into every minute, means that we race through life instead of actually living it. Our health, diet and relationships suffer. We make mistakes at work. We struggle to relax, to enjoy the moment, even to get a decent night's sleep.
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