Living is the original art. As a young man I wanted to be a poet and I learned along the way that I already was a poet.

The point of experience is not to escape life but to live it.

The practice of listening is one of the most mysterious, luminous, and challenging art forms on Earth.

We are born with only one obligation - to be completely who we are.

Water reflects everything it encounters. This is so commonplace that we think water is blue, when in fact it has no color.... But the water, the glorious water everywhere, has taught me that we are more than what we reflect or love. This is the work of compassion: to embrace everything clearly without imposing who we are and without losing who we are.

To listen is to continually give up all expectation and to give our attention, completely and freshly, to what is before us, not really knowing what we will hear or what that will mean. In the practice of our days, to listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear.

When we deny what comes through us, it defines us. When we honestly face what comes through us, then who we are grows.