The day of individual happiness has passed.

People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

For me, happiness came from prayer to a kindly God, faith in a kindly God, love for my fellow man, and doing the very best I could every day of my life. I had looked for happiness in fast living, but it was not there. I tried to find it in money, but it was not there, either. But when I placed myself in tune with what I believe to be fundamental truths of life, when I began to develop my limited ability, to rid my mind of all kinds of tangled thoughts, and fill it with zeal and courage and love, when I gave myself a chance by treating myself decently and sensibly I began to feel the stimulating, warm glow of happiness, and life for me began to flow like a stream between smooth banks.

You must choose between your attachments and happiness.

As a blind man feels when he finds a pearl in a dustbin, so am I amazed by the miracles of awakening rising in my consciousness. It is the nectar of immortality that delivers us from death, the treasure that lifts us from death, the treasure that lifts us above poverty into the wealth of giving to life, the tree that gives shade to us when we roam about scorched by life, the bridge that takes us across the stormy river of life, the cool moon of compassion that calms our mind when it is agitated, the fun that dispels darkness, the butter made from the milk of kindness by churning it with the dharma. It is a feast of joy to which all are invited.

Enjoy life.  Laugh a lot. Play and know that you are Home. You are the expression of Heaven on Earth and every day when you smile, you create it a little bit more. Re-member only three things: treat each other with the greatest of respect.  Nurture one another at every opportunity you can. Re-member it is a game and play well together.

"All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit is to stop seeking something more or better or different, and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are."

He who knows that all things are his mind,
That all with which he meets are friendly,
Is ever joyful.

Our suffering stems from ignorance. We react because we do not know what we are doing, because we do not know the reality of ourselves. The mind spends most of the time lost in fantasies and illusions, reliving pleasant or unpleasant experiences and anticipating the future with eagerness or fear. While lost in such cravings or aversions, we are unaware of what is happening now, what we are doing now. Yet surely this moment, now, is the most important for us. We cannot live in the past; it is gone. Nor can we live in the future; it is forever beyond our grasp. We can live only in the present. If we are unaware of our present actions, we are condemned to repeating the mistakes of the past and can never succeed in attaining our dreams for the future. But if we can develop the ability to be aware of the present moment, we can use the past as a guide for ordering our actions in the future, so that we may attain our goal.