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TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON 13

up as a powerful zone of energy. source of joy. Mindfulness is a cultivating an inner strength. When
source of happiness. you come back to feel your breath,
Naturally, when compassion comes concentrate on your breathing
up, arrogance goes down. You don’t Mindfulness is an energy you can with all your heart and mind.
have to fight it or push it down. generate all day long through your Concentration is not hard labor.
We can selectively water the good practice. You can wash your dishes You don’t have to strain yourself
seeds and refrain from watering in mindfulness. You can cook your or make a huge effort. Happiness
the negative seeds. This doesn’t dinner in mindfulness. You can arises lightly and easily.
mean we ignore our suffering; it just mop the floor in mindfulness. And
means that we allow the positive with mindfulness you can touch the 5. INSIGHT
seeds that are naturally there to get many conditions of happiness and
With mindfulness, we recognize
attention and nourishment. joy that are already available. You
the tension in our body, and we
are a real artist. You know how to
3. MINDFULNESS-BASED JOY create joy and happiness any time want very much to release it, but
sometimes we can’t. What we need
you want. This is the joy and the
Mindfulness helps us not only to is some insight.
happiness born from mindfulness.
get in touch with suffering, so that
we can embrace and transform it, Insight is seeing what is there. It is
4. CONCENTRATION
but also to touch the wonders of the clarity that can liberate us from
life, including our own body. Then Concentration is born from afflictions such as jealousy or anger,
breathing in becomes a delight, and mindfulness. Concentration has and allow true happiness to come.
breathing out can also be a delight. the power to break through, to Every one of us has insight, though
You truly come to enjoy your burn away the afflictions that make we don’t always make use of it to
breathing. you suffer and to allow joy and increase our happiness.
happiness to come in.

A few years ago, I had a virus in my
The essence of our practice
lungs that made them bleed. I was To stay in the present moment takes
can be described as
spitting up blood. With lungs like concentration. Worries and anxiety
that, it was difficult to breathe, and about the future are always there, transforming suffering
it was difficult to be happy while ready to take us away. We can see into happiness. It’s not a
breathing. After treatment, my lungs them, acknowledge them, and use complicated practice, but
healed and my breathing became our concentration to return to the it requires us to cultivate
mindfulness, concentration,
much better. Now when I breathe, all present moment.
and insight.
I need to do is to remember the time
when my lungs were infected with When we have concentration, we
this virus. Then every breath I take have a lot of energy. We don’t get
becomes really delicious, really good. carried away by visions of past We may know, for example, that
suffering or fears about the future. something (a craving, or a grudge)
When we practice mindful We dwell stably in the present is an obstacle for our happiness,
breathing or mindful walking, moment so we can get in touch with that it brings us anxiety and fear.
we bring our mind home to our the wonders of life, and generate joy We know this thing is not worth the
body and we are established in and happiness. sleep we’re losing over it. But still
the here and the now. We feel so we go on spending our time and
lucky; we have so many conditions Concentration is always energy obsessing about it. We’re
of happiness that are already concentration on something. If like a fish who has been caught once
available. Joy and happiness come you focus on your breathing in before and knows there’s a hook
right away. So mindfulness is a a relaxed way, you are already inside the bait; if the fish makes