Self-reflection is the gateway to freedom. It also brings greater appreciation and enjoyment. We begin to enjoy spending time with our own mind, and we enjoy reflecting on our experience of the teachings. Like the sun emerging from behind the clouds, the teachings of the dharma become clear.

A mantra is like meeting the Buddha or Bodhisattva himself.

What good are thoughts and emotions-in fact all of our experiences-if not to increase our realization?

By approaching everything with a sense of suspicion and struggle, we like to think we're in control of things. But in truth our past karma is simply playing itself out. Instead of struggling with it, however, we can choose to dance.

We cannot be fearful all the time; we have to rise above our fear, whatever is to happen to us, however our conditions may challenge us. To be fearless is a decision that one must make. And this fearlessness becomes the fundamental ground of nonviolence.

You as a salt-being, made of salt, go to fathom the depth of the ocean, and in the process you yourself dissolve. A great maharishi once said that true meditation is like this.

The outer world in all its variety and our inner world of thoughts and emotions are not as they seem. All phenomena appear to exist objectively, but their true mode of existence is like a dream: apparent yet insubstantial.