Spirituality is the intersection of three paths: letting go of ego, an unconditional yes to the conditions of human existence, and an immeasurable compassion.

When we notice a connection between our present fears and their origins in early life, we are finding out how much of our identity is designed by fear. Is fear the architect of me?

A healthy person is not perfect but perfectible, not a done deal but a work in progress. Staying healthy takes discipline, work, and patience, which is why our life is a journey and perforce a heroic one.

Most people think of love as a feeling, but love is not so much a feeling as a way of being present.

In the hero stories, the call to go on a journey takes the form of a loss, an error, a wound, an unexplainable longing, or a sense of a mission. When any of these happens to us, we are being summoned to make a transition. It will always mean leaving something behind,...The paradox here is that loss is a path to gain.

In a true you-and-I relationship, we are present mindfully, nonintrusively, the way we are present with things in nature.We do not tell a birch tree it should be more like an elm. We face it with no agenda, only an appreciation that becomes participation: 'I love looking at this birch' becomes 'I am this birch' and then 'I and this birch are opening to a mystery that transcends and holds us both.

The human heart holds much more love than it can ever disburse in one lifetime.