When we are able to receive life's challenges as koans rather than problems, they become interesting and exciting, rather than ponderous and depressing.

We turn pain into suffering by adding on all kinds of beliefs, interpretations and judgments to it.

In a relationship if you are giving and getting nothing back in return, stop giving so much, and spend time being. Give to yourself, be who you are.

Who you are is always enough. If your partner wants something different, it does not reflect upon you, but upon their needs and fantasies.

God's guiding hand, the guiding Voice, resting lightly upon us is best felt and heard when we are silent and still.

When we sit, we open our own treasure house. Rather than do this, however, most of us first seek to find the treasures another person can provide. We calculate their value to us. When we approach relationships in this manner, we are coming as beggars, seeing the other as a source of supply. When we can enter a relationship with our treasure house already open, there is no end to the wonders we can find, both within and between ourselves and another.

Do not make this practice a source of pressure, compulsion, anxiety or pride. It is none of these. Zazen is simply a way to find your true home.