Buddhist Wisdom That Will Positively Transform Your Life...

 

Buddhaimonia ... Buddhism holds within it a treasure trove of wisdom, not to mention wisdom easily applicable in one's everyday life and by all people of various backgrounds, beliefs, and preferences.

Thich Nhat Hanh has said, "Buddhism is made up of all non-Buddhist elements." And this couldn't be truer. When it comes down to it, Buddhism is really just a collection of methods and ways of realizing the ultimate truths of this life, and the path to discovering true peace and happiness.

Whether Buddhist, a collector of universal wisdom, or just someone interested in finding practical ways to improve their life, this list presents 12 powerful and potentially transformative pieces of Buddhist wisdom which you can benefit from.

12 Pieces of Buddhist Wisdom That Will Transform Your Life

1. Live with compassion

Compassion is one of the most revered qualities in Buddhism and great compassion is a sign of a highly realized human being.

Compassion doesn't just help the world at large, and it isn't just about the fact that it's the right thing to do. Compassion, and seeking to understand those around you, can transform your life for a number of reasons.

First, self-compassion is altogether critical towards finding peace within yourself. By learning to forgive yourself and accepting that you're human you can heal deep wounds bring yourself back from difficult challenges.

Next, we can often be tortured because of the fact that we don't completely understand why people do certain things.

Compassion is understanding the basic goodness in all people and then seeking to discover that basic goodness in specific people. Because of this, it helps you from going through the often mental torture we experience because we don't understand the actions of others.

But even more than that, expressing compassion is the very act of connecting wholeheartedly with others, and simply connecting in this way can be a great source of joy for us.

The reasons for practicing compassion are numerous and powerful. Seek to live in a way that you treat everyone you meet as you would yourself. Once you begin trying to do this, it will seem altogether impossible. But keep at it, and you'll realize the full power of living with compassion.

2. Connect with others and nurture those connections

In Buddhism, a community of practitioners is called a "sangha". A sangha is a community of monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen who practice together in peace towards the united "goal" of realizing greater awakening, not only for themselves but for all beings.

The sangha is a principle which much of the world can greatly benefit from. People come together in groups all the time, but it's usually for the purpose of creating monetary riches or obtaining substantial power and rarely towards the united goal of attaining peace, happiness, and realizing greater wisdom.

The principle of the sangha can be expressed in your own life in many ways. The sangha is ultimately just one way of looking at life, through the lens of the individual "expressions" of the totality.

By living in a way that you're fully aware of the power of connecting with others, whether it's one person or a group of 100, and seeking to nurture those relationships in the appropriate way, you can transform your life in ways that will pay dividends for years to come.

3. Wake up

One of the most powerful points on this list, the power of simply living in a way that you're fully awake to every moment of your life pretty much couldn't be exaggerated even if I tried.

Mindfulness, greater awareness, paying attention, whatever you want to call it- it changes every facet of your life and in every way. It's as simple as that.

Strive to live fully awake to each moment of your daily life and overcome your greatest personal struggles, find a great sense of peace and joy, and realize the greatest lessons life can teach you as a result of living fully awake to the present moment.

4. Live deeply

To live deeply, in a way that you become keenly aware of the precious nature of life, is to begin down the path of true peace and happiness.

Why? Because to live in this way is to gradually become aware of the true nature of the world. This will happen essentially in "sections" of the whole, such as realizing your interconnectedness (you begin to see how everything is connected to everything else) and impermanence (you begin to see how everything is ever-changing, constantly dying only to be reborn in another form).

These realizations are the bread and butter of Buddhism and all spiritual practice. These "sections of the whole" are fragments of the ultimate realization, ways for us to understand that which can't be fully understood in the traditional sense.

By living in a way that you seek to realize these various "qualities of the ultimate" you find greater and greater peace in realizing the natural way of things. This cultivates in us the ability to savor every moment of life, to find peace in even the most mundane activities, as well as the ability to transform your typically "negative" experiences into something altogether nourishing and healing.

5. Change yourself, change the world

Buddhists understand that you can hardly help another before you help yourself. But this isn't referring to you gaining power or riches before you can help others or living in a way that you ignore others.

This is mostly referring to the fact that because we're all interconnected, by you helping yourself you create an exponentially positive effect on the rest of the world.

If you want to make an impact on the world, don't falsely convince yourself that it's "you or them". You don't need to drag yourself through the mud to help those around you. If you do this, you'll greatly hamper your ability to create a positive impact.

At the deepest level of understanding, by making it about you this also makes it about them because you know there's no separating "you" and "them".

Take care of yourself and seek to be more than just a help, but an example of how to live for others to follow and you'll create waves of exponential possibility that inspires others to do the same.

6. Embrace death

Death is an often taboo topic in Western society. We do everything we can to not only avoid the subject but pretend that it doesn't even exist.

The reality is, this is really unfortunate and in no way helps us lead better lives. Becoming keenly aware of your own impermanence and deeply understanding the nature of death with regards to our interconnectedness are both things which can help us find great peace.

In Buddhism, students in many sects at one point or another "meditate on the corpse" as it were (a practice which is said to have originated at least as far back as the Buddha's lifetime).

This is literally what it sounds like. They meditate on the image of a corpse slowing decomposing and imagine that process through to its end, eventually resulting in a deep and profound realization about the true nature of death.

That might sound a little intense to you, but the truth is if you live your entire life acting as if you're never going to die or ignoring your own impermanence then you won't ever be able to find true peace within yourself.

You don't necessarily have to meditate on the image of a corpse, but simply opening up to yourself about death so that you're no longer shielding it from your mind (which you're likely doing unconsciously, as that's how most of us were brought up in the West) can begin to be a great source of peace and help you appreciate the many joys in your everyday life.

A true appreciation for life can never be fully realized until you come face-to-face with your own impermanence. But once you do this, the world opens up in a new and profound way.

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