This is Your Brain on Bliss
by Matthieu Ricard

After 2,000 years of practice, Buddhist monks know that one secret to happiness is simply to put your mind to it.

What is happiness, and how can we achieve it?

Happiness can’t be reduced to a few agreeable sensations. Rather, it is a way of being and of experiencing the world—a profound fulfillment that suffuses every moment and endures despite inevitable setbacks.

More at Yes!

31 Ways to Jump Start the Local Economy

How to make it with less, share more, and put people and the planet first

Build a secure, sustainable economy beginning at home and in your community…

More at Yes!

Genuine Inspiration and Buddha Mind

Genuine inspiration is not particularly dramatic. It's very ordinary. It comes from settling down in your environment and accepting situations as natural. Out of that you begin to realize that you can dance with them. So inspiration comes from acceptance rather than from having a sudden flash of a good gimmick coming up in your mind....Inspiration has two parts: openness and clear vision, or in Sanskrit, shunyata and prajna. Both are based on the notion of original mind, traditionally known as buddha mind, which is blank, nonterritorial, noncompetitive, and open.

From "One Stroke" in Dharma Art, page 100.
www.chronicleproject.com

"By nature, the essence of our mind is total peace. Therefore, we can find true peace of mind through meditation."

Yongey Mingyur Dorje Rinpoche
www.mingyur.org

"Faith alone never stops problems; understanding knowledge-wisdom always does. Lord Buddha himself said that belief in Buddha was dangerous; that instead of just believing in something, people should use their minds to try to discover their own true nature".

Lama Zopa Rinpoche
www.fpmt.org

"When I meditate, I am always inspired by this poem by Nyoshul Khenpo:

Rest in natural great peace
This exhausted mind
Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thought,
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves
In the infinite ocean of samsara.

Quietly sitting, body still, speech silent, mind at peace, let thoughts and emotions, whatever arises, come and go, without clinging to anything.
What does this state feel like? Dudjom Rinpoche used to say, imagine a man who comes home after a long, hard day`s work in the fields and sinks into his favorite chair in front of the fire. He has been working all day and he knows he has achieved what he wanted to achieve; there is nothing more to worry about, nothing left unaccomplished, and he can let go completely of all his cares and concerns, content, simply, to be."
Sogyal Rinpoche
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
http://www.palasathena.org/editora/editora_livro_tibetano.html
Photo Gina da Silva (POR), Deer Park in Bir, India