If you look into the mirror, you see that [every part of you] belongs there and you belong there, as you are. You begin to realize that you have a perfect right to be in this universe, to be this way, and you see that there is a basic hospitality that this world provides to you. You have looked and you have seen, and you don't have to apologize for being born on this earth.

Even fear itself is frightened by the bodhisattva's fearlessness.

The point of meditation is not merely to be an honest or good person in the conventional sense, trying only to maintain our security. We must begin to become compassionate and wise in the fundamental sense, open and relating to the world as it is.

Then, we realize that the degraded cocoon we have been hiding in is revolting, and we want to turn up the lights as far as we can. In fact, we are not turning up the lights, but we are simply opening our eyes wider. We catch a certain kind of fever.

Buddhism doesn't tell you what is false and what is true but it encourages you to find out for yourself.

Why don't we just expand ourselves into our perfect form, our perfect being?

When we talk about compassion we talk in terms of being kind. But compassion is not so much being kind; it is being creative [enough] to wake a person up