Smile, breathe, and go slowly. Thich Nhat Hanh Don't try to steer the river.

We need to go back to our relationship with nature and understand that those trees are our lungs. The earth is recycling as our body. The rivers are our circulation. This air is our breath. And the star stuff, the carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen that comes from distant galaxies is actually the molecules of your body.

Addiction is craving fulfillment from something that cannot provide fulfillment. In this sense it is not different than the basic mechanism of ignorance that keeps everyone in bondage. With substance addiction the mind/body sets up a vicious cycle that perpetuates the dependence.

If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another.

Beyond the mind, at the deepest level of consciousnesss, resides the spirit. This is the part of us that is eternal, unchanging, and imbued with pure unlimited potential. Tapping into this potential is what enables us to manifest miracles.

I want to offer the possibility that Jesus was truly, as he proclaimed, a savior. Not the savior, not the one and only Son of God. Rather Jesus embodied the highest level of enlightenment.

Let us realize that engagement and detachment aren't opposite-the more engaged we become, the more detached we will have to be.