We must recognize that all beings want the same thing we want. This is the way to achieve a true understanding, unfettered by artificial consideration.
I feel that a genuine, affectionate smile is very important in our day-to-day lives. How one creates that smile largely depends on one's own attitude. It is illogical to expect smiles from others if one does not smile oneself. Therefore, one can see that many things depend on one's own behaviour.
You are so anxious about the future that you do not enjoy the present. You therefore do not live in the present or the future. You live as if you are never going to die, and then die having never really lived.
If you resort to violent methods because the other side has destroyed your monastery, for example, you then have lost not only your monastery, but also your special Buddhist practices of detachment, love, and compassion.
Distrust brings frustration and fear. So therefore, the lonely feeling automatically come. So, lonely feeling is not creation of environment, but creation of your own mental attitude.
Developing concern for others, thinking of them as part of us, brings self-confidence , reduces our sense of suspicion and mistrust, and enables us to develop a calm mind.
The egotistical ambition to always want to earn more money harms both the company and the individual himself. That is the biggest weakness of many managers - the financial crisis has proven this.
Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened. If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures.
As a Buddhist, I view death as a normal process, a reality that I accept will occur as long as I remain in this earthly existence. Knowing that I cannot escape it, I see no point in worrying about it. I tend to think of death as being like changing your clothes when they are old and worn out, rather than as some final end. Yet death is unpredictable: We do not know when or how it will take place. So it is only sensible to take certain precautions before it actually happens.
I'm sure all of us agree that we need to overcome violence, but we first need to examine whether it has any value. From a strictly practical perspective, on certain occasions violence appears to be useful. We can solve a problem quickly by force. But this success is often at the expense of the rights and welfare of others. Although one problem has been solved, the seed of another has been planted.