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

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.

The best defense against being hurt is to feel good about yourself and the way a person responds to you says more about them, than about you.

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

We are what we think about. When we stay fixed on one person, thought or situation, we get caught in the grip of self-centered thoughts. The more we give attention to that which is upsetting, the more strength it has to rule our lives.

Whatever we can't love or accept in another, is a mirror of something we can't love or accept in ourselves.

In the Zen Way we focus upon each breath, each day, each moment and experience it totally. One complete breath brings the next.