Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment.

Compassion has nothing to do with achievement at all. It is spacious and very generous. When a person develops real compassion, he is uncertain whether he is being generous to others or to himself because compassion is enviromental generosity, without direction, without " for me" and without " for them". It is filled with joy, spontaneously existing joy, constant joy in the sense of trust, in the sense that joy contains tremendous wealth, richness.

That is the basic pattern of this kind of meditation, which is based on three fundamental factors: first, not centralizing inward; second, not having any longing to become higher; and third, becoming completely identified with here and now.

The past situation has just occurred and the future situation has not yet manifested itself so there is a gap between the two. This is basically the bardo (life between life) experience. [This is the place where your life is reviewed - where you get another chance to let life teach you and end the cycle of pain. -EM]

The trouble with Westerners is that they want to witness their own enlightenment.

We need to encourage an attitude of constant questioning, which is a genuine part of our potential as students. If students were required to drop their questions, that would create armies of zombies- rows of jellyfish...The questioning mind is absolutely necessary.

Although the warrior's life is dedicated to helping others, he realizes that he will never be able to completely share his experience with others...Yet he is more and more in love with the world. That combination of love affair and loneliness is what enables the warrior to constantly reach out to help others. By renouncing his private world, the warrior discovers a greater universe and a fuller and fuller broken heart. This is not something to feel bad about; it is a cause for rejoicing.