We're all stumbling towards the light with varying degrees of grace at any given moment.

You may study with the highest teachers, but you will find no one but yourself teaching you. You may travel the world over, yet find nothing but yourself, reflected the world over. So if you now find yourself in a cell, take heart that of all the teachers in the world, out of all the places in the world, you still have with you the only ultimate ingredient of your journey: yourself.

This is the first step toward understanding the process of real, lasting change: simply knowing with certainty that you can do whatever you need to do. This understanding has a dual edge: On the one hand it increases your confidence and dignity. On the other hand, it places full responsibility on you if you fail to make the change you set out to make. But this is a good thing, not a guilt trip.

The gap between our sincere values and our actual behavior is the source of all self-hatred.

We're all doing time. As soon as we get born, we find ourselves assigned to one little body, one set of desires and fears, one family, city, state, country, and planet. Who can ever understand exactly why or how it comes down as it does? The bottom line is, here we are. Whatever, wherever we are, this is what we've got. It's up to us whether we do it as easy time or hard time.

In the midst of global crises such as pollution, wars and famine, kindness may be too easily dismissed as a 'soft' issue, or a luxury to be addressed after the urgent problems are solved. But kindness is the greatest need in all those areas - kindness toward the environment, toward other nations, toward the needs of people who are suffering. Until we reflect basic kindness in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and fragile.

Do you want a world with . . . more joy and happiness? Then find your own joy and happiness and contribute to the joy and happiness of others.