The Now is as it is because it cannot be otherwise. What Buddhists have always known, physicists now confirm: there are no isolated things or events. Underneath the surface appearance, all things are interconnected, are part of the totality of the cosmos that has brought about the form that this moment takes.

The ego is just waiting to identify with anything. Whether it's your misery or being a great meditator, it seeks some identification.

When you accept everything for what it is without labels you are outside of your ego.

Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.

Life wants to support you. But first you need to be open to life.

Honoring the moment is honoring every human being you meet. The only place where you can meet them is in the moment.

In the unawakened state you don't use thought, but thought uses you. You are, one could almost say, possessed by thought, which is the collective conditioning of the human mind that goes back many thousands of years. You don't see anything as it is, but distorted and reduced by mental labels, concepts, judgments, opinions and reactive patterns.