And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’

—Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

Healing

Diet, lifestyle, and mind-body balance are the pillars of health, and no amount of tinctures or capsules can take their place.

—Body Into Balance by Maria Noel Graves

If you know how to use the poison, it’s a medicine. If you don’t know how to use the medicine, it’s a poison.

—Dr. Nida Chenagtsang, Sowa Rigpa Institute

Enjoyment is also important.

—Menpa Phuntsog Wangmo, Shang Shung Institute of America

Mind Training

We like to be right. When we’re in conflict with other people, it can be hard to just let go. We wish our siblings or spouses or co-workers would just change how they think, or how they are. This passage, from the spiritual teacher Ram Dass, is a good reminder to observe others with interest, without reacting emotionally to their behavior. ¹

“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.

The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying “You are too this, or I’m too this.” That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”

Participating

Listen for what it is that I can do in this moment to participate in the web of life, to do the thing that only I can do, and show up. Because that’s what’s needed.

—Oren Jay Sofer, Wise Speech course