When you care about perfection, you care about an expectation. But there is also caring for where I am right now, for what's happening right now. When I spend time with students, they tell me that they've read something in a book or heard something from a teacher that they don't think they're living up to. And I tell them, “Take care of yourself right now. Befriend what's happening, not just who you're supposed to be or what the world should be like. This is where you are now. So how do you care for yourself this minute?

It's very rare to be in a state where there's nothing in, where you have no attachment to any idea or concept about yourself. In that state you've immediately raised the mind of compassion, because if nothing is in, everything is in, and you are now free to experience yourself as the world.

The basic problem, actually, is how to get rid of the idea that we're going to get rid of our problems. Only then can we relate directly with the real issues of our life.

In every area, working with what you habitually reject is one of the best ways to facilitate growth and transformation.

The pursuit of enlightenment is for the purpose of the world, not merely for the purpose of the individual. Practices for enlightenment must lead to action in the world.

Don't make a whole to-do about it. Don't get down on yourself be- cause you're not an expert rower; don't start reading too many books in order to do it right.

I always tell people that if you get upset over what someone says, imagine him or her with a clown's nose on and you won't get so angry.