Your good qualities, if you don’t know how to use them, can hurt you — like money, which is something good but, if you don’t know how to spend it wisely, can lead to your ruin; or like a good sharp knife that, if you don’t know how to use it properly, can do you harm. Say, for instance, that you use the knife to kill someone. When you’re caught, you’ll have to be thrown in jail or executed, which means that you used the knife to kill yourself.
~Access to Insight

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Beautiful things come from things that are dirty, and not at all from things that are pleasant and clean. Crops and trees, for instance, grow to be healthy and beautiful because of the rotten and smelly compost and nightsoil with which they’re fertilized. In the same way, a beautiful mind comes from meeting with things that aren’t pleasant. When we meet with bad things, the mind has a chance to grow.

Source: http://www.accesstoinsight.org

Human beings will continue to deceive and overpower one another.  Basically, everyone exists in the very nature of suffering, so to abuse or mistreat each other is futile. The foundation of all spiritual practice is love.  That you practice this well is my only request.  H.H. Dalai Lama

All the faces had so many traces
Yet it was the reflection in the sweet silence
Of my meditation which brought me here.
~Silent Lotus

Me watching dolphins in Cambodia. Ten minutes later, someone stole my purse. Hope that thief is on g+ and s/he should be rich by now

Peacefulness is an inner sense of calm – it comes from becoming still – in order to reflect and meditate on our inner wisdom and receive answers. A peaceful heart is one that is free from worry and trouble. It’s becoming quiet so we can look at things quietly so we can more clearly understand them and thus come up with creative solutions. It is learning to live in the present. ~Wayne W. Dyer

When we first meet with the fires of greed, aversion, and delusion, we find them comforting and warm. We’re like a person sitting by a fire in the cold season: As he sits soaking up the warmth, he gets more and more sleepy and careless until he burns his hands and feet without realizing it, and eventually falls head-first into the flames.

Source: http://www.accesstoinsight.org

The source of love is deep in us and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person’s suffering and bring that person joy. ― Thich Nhat Hanh

Give up anger; renounce pride;
transcend all worldly attachments.
No sufferings touch the person
who is not attached to name and form,
who calls nothing one’s own.
Whoever restrains rising anger like a chariot gone astray,
that one I call a real driver;
others merely hold the reins.

Overcome anger by love; overcome wrong by good;
overcome the miserly by generosity, and the liar by truth.
Speak the truth; do not yield to anger;
give even if asked for a little.
These three steps lead you to the gods…
~Buddha

All beings are from the very beginning Buddhas.
It is like water and ice:
Apart from water, no ice,
Outside living beings, no Buddhas.
Not knowing it is near, they seek it afar.
What a pity!
It is like one in the water who cries out with thirst;
It is like the child of a rich house who has strayed among the poor.
The cause of our circling through the six worlds
Is that we are on the dark paths of ignorance.
Dark path upon dark path treading,
When shall we escape from birth-and-death?

~Hakuin, 1689-1769
Song of Meditation

The lotus rises through the murky waters of ponds and lakes yet, when it blooms, it floats upon the surface, its petals shining and untainted by the mud from which it emerged.

Happy New Year!
With Love and Best Wishes

Jendhamuni