“At every moment, we always have a choice, even if it feels as if we don’t. Sometimes that choice may simply be to think a more positive thought.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“Don’t worry if you think you’re the only one facing challenges. If the people around you don’t seem to have problems, that just means you don’t know them well enough to see their troubles, or they’re very good at hiding them. Problems are inescapable for all living beings. As Nichiren said: “No one can avoid problems, not even sages.” Living a joyful life, I’ve found, is not about trying to avoid the unavoidable. Joy comes from summoning a strong life force to overcome problems, from the smallest irritation to the biggest disaster”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good
“If you are unhappy with anything - your mother, your father, your husband, your wife, your job, your boss, your car - whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.”
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“If a negative thought arose, I’d repeat a positive one eight times in a row to counteract it. Soon, I began loving myself, imperfections and all. I stopped comparing myself to others (never compare yourself to others), and at last I started to look good to myself.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“I’ve never met anyone who didn’t have problems of one sort or another. If we find ourselves without any problems, it’s just a matter of time until something pops up. That’s life!”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“All along, I kept this encouragement from Daisaku Ikeda close to my heart: “One thing is certain: The power of belief, the power of thought, will move reality in the direction of what we believe and conceive of it. If you really believe you can do something, you can. That is a fact. When you clearly envision the outcome of victory, engrave it upon your heart, and are firmly convinced that you will attain it, your brain makes every effort to realize the mental image you have created. And then, through your unceasing efforts, that victory is finally made a reality.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“If you’re not certain of the value of mentorship, think of how many elite athletes or professional sports teams train without a coach. Zero. How many of your favorite films are made without a producer or director? Zero. How many of the best schools in the world function without teachers? Zero. It’s safe to say that every great leader, in any field, first had a great mentor. Finding a mentor who inspires and guides your growth is a life-changing experience. Mentors help us to transcend the limits, or perceived limits, of our abilities. A mentor can be anyone who teaches us and helps us to grow in ways we couldn’t have on our own.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“I have always seen great value in practicing kindness. Although I had no money to buy gifts as a child, I gave my friends the gift of song to cheer them up. Depending on the situation, I’d sing to them and make up melodies and lyrics on the spot about whatever was going on in their lives. If a girlfriend was lonely or heartbroken, I’d make up a song about the handsome and adoring boyfriend I imagined coming into her life. Or if a friend felt deprived or neglected, I’d make up a song about a gift of a shiny new doll, or a velvet party dress, that I knew would make her happy.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“I believe we each hold within us what I call a “coin of God,” a piece of the eternal energy of the universe, the essence of Buddha nature. A coin is a minted piece of value from the greater system to which it belongs, and each living being is a priceless treasure piece, molded from our greater universe. May we each cherish ourselves and extend this kindness to all living beings with whom we share this blessed planet.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“I’m often reminded of Nichiren’s words: “Life itself is the most precious of all treasures. Even one extra day of life is worth more than ten million coins of gold.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“Rising from the ashes of my earlier life, I learned that our thoughts, words, and deeds are unified through spiritual practice. They are made whole within us. And when our thoughts, words, and deeds are aligned with our most positive intentions, magic happens.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“Jazz music itself is an example of changing poison into medicine. African Americans created jazz, a great medicine for people’s hearts, out of the poisonous experience of slavery. Jazz developed from African culture, gospel music, and blues to lift up the spirits of oppressed people, and now it brings joy to people the world over.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“In 2014, my friend Herbie Hancock was invited to give the prestigious Norton Lectures at Harvard University, where he shared great insights on the topics of mentorship and changing poison into medicine. Herbie related lessons from his jazz mentor, Miles Davis, who taught him that “a great mentor can provide a path to finding your own true answers,” and to always “reach up while reaching down; grow while helping others.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“By honoring each other’s ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds, we become stronger and happier, brightening the cosmic masterpiece of artwork that is our world. Rather than emphasize differences, we should be looking for similarities. Our differences are ultimately superficial, and the best thing to do is celebrate them.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“My heartfelt wish is that you and I, and everyone around the world, will continue expanding our hearts and minds while celebrating our differences and ridding ourselves of any form of discrimination. This, I believe, is a basic requirement for peace, both within ourselves and in our societies.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“People can only live fully by helping others to live …
Cultures can only realize their further richness by honoring other traditions.
And only by respecting natural life can humanity continue to exist. —DAISAKU IKEDA”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“The religious faith that we are born into is largely determined by the region where we live and the ethnic background of our family. In my case, I was born to an African American family in the southern region of the United States. Like most families of our description, we embraced the Baptist religious tradition. Although I went from Baptist to Buddhist, I’ve honored my family’s heritage and cherish the similarities between these two paths. Baptist teachings encouraged me to work toward attaining admission into a heavenly paradise, while Buddhism inspires me to attain the enduring and enlightened life condition of Buddhahood. Although the goals of these two spiritual paths may sound somewhat different, both focus on creating a state of indestructible, eternal happiness. To me, that is an important similarity. I’ve met people from all over the world, from many cultures and faiths, and I believe that all religious traditions share the same basic aspirations at their core—to experience everlasting joy by aligning with the positive forces of the universe. We may describe this ultimate reality as Jehovah, God, Allah, Jesus, Hashem, Tao, Brahma, the Creator, the Mystic Law, the Universe, the Force, Buddha nature, Christ consciousness, or any number of other expressions.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“More valuable than treasures in a storehouse are treasures of the body, and the treasures of the heart are the most valuable of all. —NICHIREN”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“I call something a miracle when an ordinary person achieves something extraordinary. We all have the potential to create miraculous changes. It is my hope and my prayer that you will become a miracle maker, a “human revolutionist,” too.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“The reward is not so great without the struggle. —WILMA RUDOLPH”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“What really matters is not whether we have problems but how we go through them. —ROSA PARKS”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“The best way to attain Buddhahood is to encounter a good friend.
How far can our own wisdom take us?
If we have even enough wisdom to distinguish hot from cold, we should seek out a good friend. —NICHIREN • Having good friends and advancing together with them is not half the Buddha way but all the Buddha way. —SHAKYAMUNI • To not advance is to retreat. —TSUNESABURO MAKIGUCHI”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and philosopher, alluded to this when he said, “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“Physical strength in a Woman... that's what I am”
―“Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed. —MAHATMA GANDHI”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“No matter what accomplishments you achieve, somebody helped you. —ALTHEA GIBSON • A mentor is someone who allows you to see the higher part of yourself when sometimes it becomes hidden to your own view. —OPRAH WINFREY • Show me a successful individual and I’ll show you someone who had positive influences in his or her life…. A mentor. —DENZEL WASHINGTON”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“Difficulties are not necessarily unfortunate.
It depends on your attitude.
You can either let difficulties crush you, or you can use them to build your strength. —INDIRA GANDHI”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“Take your broken heart, make it into art. —CARRIE FISHER • Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.
Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. —HELEN KELLER”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“As German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse said, the more we mature, the younger we grow. What a beautiful sentiment!”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“And you know what I say to people who ask, “What do you do when all the odds are against you?” I say, “You keep going. You just don’t stop. No matter, if there’s one slap to the face, turn the other cheek. And the hurt you’re feeling? You can’t think about what’s being done to you now, or what has been done to you in the past. You just have to keep going.”
― My Love Story
“So that’s what I did. I just kept going. I never said, “Well, I don’t have this and I don’t have that.” I said, “I don’t have this yet, but I’m going to get it.”
― My Love Story“I never felt loved, so I decided it wasn’t important. Not to me. I think I put up a kind of a shield against it. I told myself, “If you don’t care about me, that’s okay, I’ll go on. If you don’t love me, I’ll go on.” I’ll go on was my mantra before I ever knew what a mantra was.”
― My Love Story“However you must do it, to truly understand. When you say ‘Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo’ it will slowly remove all of the bad decisions you have ever made. The more you repeat the words the more you make your life clearer. The more you chant it the closer you get to your true nature. Your true nature is the right way of thinking and the right way of acting. The longer you go on this path, the more you avoid making wrong decisions. The Lotus Sutra helps me in my daily life. It is indeed mystical! And my life has proven this!”
―“You take your problems to a god, but what you really need is for the god to take you to the inside of you.”
―“What good comes from complaints? Grumbling only brings you down. Find a way forward, smile, shake it off, love yourself. Use your challenges to become stronger. This is how you can transform your karma and open your heart.”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good“What an endless chain of unhappiness prejudice forges. —LENA HORNE”
― Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good
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