It is important to realize that a large percentage of what we hear or see on the news focuses on those places where there is violent conflict...It gives us a slightly or very distorted view of what is going on because there are many other parts of the planet where there is no violent conflict, but that is not on the news.

You are not seeking to attain some future state. That is the fallacy of many spiritual seekers. They have an image of some state - enlightenment, or whatever they call it - they want to achieve.

And so I came to understand why some masters sometimes say, "You are already enlightened."

When you take your attention into the present moment, a certain alertness arises. You become more conscious of what's around you, but also, strangely, a sense of presence that is both within and without.

The whole essence of Zen consists in walking along the razor's edge of Now - to be so utterly, so completely present that no problem, no suffering, nothing that is not who you are in your essence, can survive in you. In the Now, in the absence of time, all your problems dissolve. Suffering needs time; it cannot survive in the Now.

Space and silence are two aspects of the same thing. The same no-thing. They are externalization of inner space and inner silence, which is stillness: the infinitely creative womb of all existence.

Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.