Aphorisms

By The Supreme Master Ching Hai

A clean quality will naturally make a place become clean, beautiful and holy. Therefore, cleanliness is saintliness.
Unless we change ourselves through spiritual practice, we will not be able to avoid our own karma.
Through hardship, we learn kindness. Through every misfortune, we receiwe God's holy plan - so as to make it better.
Within the bad there exist the good. Just like roses have thorns, we can't always look at the thorns, we must gaze at the rose.
Sharing, it's just like planting more seeds, and then it will grow more, grow more, and then you get some back, more than you have sown and then even left over, to sow for the next harvest, again and again. You never lose.
Even if you lose all things, so what? You came to the world with nothing, you have not lost anything. You have gained so much since you have come to this world. You brought nothing into the world but you have gain all things, you have grown up a big person, you gain from the world, you take many things from the world. So even if we lose everything, it belongs to the world anyhow, it originally did not belong to us.
As spiritual practitioners, we should use the same kind of concentration as when we practice, no matter what kind of situation we are in, painful or joyful. Forgetting about ourselves, the worldly temptation and any other different situations, we should know that we do everything for God.
The real importance is to be satisfied with ourselves. We should never disgrace others' as well as our own consciousness, no matter what we do.
If now we have some vicious quality, we don't need to blame ourselves anymore. Just correct it. Because if we don't correct it, it is not good for us, regardless of the reason.
Any evil in this world is a kind of lesson for us to learn. Any worldly greed, anger and attachment are there because we can not find the real treasure. As a result of that, we are longing for something. We wander around, feeling as if we have lost something, hoping that one day we can discover that "something". Therefore, greed, anger and attachment are all buddhi and so is all worrying.
Sometimes, we experience suffering, illness and trouble, we think all these are karma. However, we should realize that they are blessings in disguise too.
The more we think of God, the more relaxed we will be. It is like thinking and not thinking are the same, because we and God have become "One". At that moment, we are in a state of "Zen", even when we are walking, living, sitting, and sleeping. At that time, we have attained the Truth.