Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.

Memories are thoughts that arise. They're not realities. Only when you believe that they are real, then they have the power over you. But when you realize it's just another thought arising about the past, then you can have a spacious relationship with that thought. The thought no longer has you in its grip.

When there's a teacher who embodies presence, then it seems to come for a while through that opening. The teacher is an opening to presence.

The unchecked striving for more, for endless growth, is a dysfunction and a disease. It is the same dysfunction the cancerous cell manifests, whose only goal is to multiply itself, unaware that it is bringing about its own destruction by destroying the organism of which it is a part.

There's something in everybody that longs for that awakening to be more true to yourself.

If you cannot accept an external event immediately, then some kind of resistance will come up. And there may be some external events you cannot accept at all.

For spiritual teachers, it is important not to identify with the image people inevitably have of them.