Only by awakening can you know the true meaning of that word.

Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" --- and find that there is no death.

If I thought it was my identity to be a spiritual teacher, that would be a delusion. It's not an identity. It's simply a function in this world.

Awareness and ego cannot coexist.

So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert. At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don’t act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present - present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness.

When you always want the next thing, every human being becomes a means to an end.

For many years I had been deeply identified with thinking and the painful, heavy emotions that had accumulated inside. My thought activity was mostly negative, and my sense of identity was also mostly negative, although I tried hard to prove to myself and to the world that I was good enough by working very hard academically. But even after I had achieved academic success, I was happy for two weeks or three and then the depression and anxiety came back.