This very moment is the perfect teacher. It is always with us; it is the most profound instruction we can receive. Awareness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom. It is available in each moment of our ordinary lives.
We will put in the extra effort and even go through hardship if we know that we will gain something better for it. Self-discipline, if practiced with understanding and clear goals, will lead to a greater result. If you put in extra effort in this way, you gain a better life.
Make no one a foe, then harmony and tranquility will be yours. If we rule ourselves with felicity then everyone gains and we can all live in simplicity. Stop trying to control, let go of fixed plans and concepts and the world will, in turn, govern itself.
If we remain at the mercy of moods, of hope and of fear aroused by the outer world, we lose out inner consistency of character. Then our experiences are merely effects produced by the outside world, not experiences evoked by our own true nature.
Quote: Half the work that is done in this world is to make things appear what they are not.