Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum. We don't interrupt our patterns even slightly. With practice, however, we learn to stay with a bro….

Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are..

The point is that our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to. It's who we are right now, and that's what we can make friends with a….

If you work with your mind, that will alleviate all the suffering that seems to come from the outside..

Trying to run away is never the answer to being a fully human. Running away from the immediacy of our experience is like preferring death to life..

You must learn to sit with the restless, painful energy and not let the momentum pull you under and cause you to do the same thing over and over that….

Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment..

Everything is fresh, the essence of realization..

Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us..

We are all capable of becoming fundamentalists because we get addicted to other people's wrongness..

Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering..

Meditation takes us just as we are, with our confusion and our sanity. This complete acceptance of ourselves as we are is called maitri, or unconditi….

We give it up and just look directly with compassion and humor at who we are. Then loneliness is no threat and heartache, no punishment..

In the end, that's what we all need more than anything else: to be there for each other, in every kind of situation..

It has a lot to do with developing patience, not with the check-out person so much, but with your own pain that arises, the rawness and the vulnerabi….

Whole-heartedn ess is a precious gift, but no one can actually give it to you. You have to find the path that has heart and then walk it impeccably..….

I dedicate the merit of the occasion to all beings. This gesture of universal friendship has been likened to a drop of fresh spring water. If we put ….

If you work with your mind, instead of trying to change everything on the outside, that's how your temper will cool down..

Each of us has a "soft spot": the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, a….

Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future..

Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?.