When you relate to thoughts obsessively, you are actually feeding them because thoughts need your attention to survive. Once you begin to pay attention to them and categorize them, then they become very powerful. You are feeding them energy because you are not seeing them as simple phenomena. If one tries to quiet them down, that is another way of feeding them.

For the very reason that we expect things to be good and beautiful, they won't be. In genuine spirituality, we don't look for bliss.

Sit and do nothing. Every once in a while a golden fish swims by and lays her golden eggs. You'll know.

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.

The basic work of health professionals in general, and of psychotherapist s in particular, is to become full human beings and to inspire full human-beingness in other people who feel starved about their lives.

Ultimately, that is the definition of bravery: not being afraid of yourself.

Walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle process; it is not something to jump into naively. There are numerous sidetracks which leades to a distorted, ego-centered version of spirituality; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques. This fundamental distortion may be referred to as spiritual materialism