When we are in a truly loving relationship, we receive the gift of being known and accepted. We become more, not less, of who we are. We receive the space in which to bloom. This is how we know we are in a loving relationship. We are blooming, and the one we love is blooming as well.

The facts of our lives, when we are able to know them, will free us from the torment we are in. When we can bear reality thoroughly, suffering is over. Pain may exist, but it is only pain. Suffering is what we add to pain.

All experiences are welcomed and fully digested, not judged good or bad.

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

If one's sense of self is obtained through the eyes of another it is always subject to being lost.

When we are willing to accept our experience, just as it is, a strange thing happens: it changes into something else. When we avoid pain, struggle not to feel it, pain turns into suffering.

From the Zen view all beings are in the grip of the three poisons, greed, anger and delusion (ignorance).