Whenever you are able, have a "look" inside yourself to see whether you are unconsciously creating conflict between the inner and the outer, between your external circumstances at that moment - where you are, who you are with, or what you are doing - and your thoughts and feelings. Can you feel how painful it is to internally stand in opposition to what is? When you recognize this, you also realize that you are now free to give up this futile conflict, this inner state of war.

When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life.

When you look at a tree and perceive its stillness, you become still yourself. You connect with it at a very deep level. You feel a oneness with whatever you perceive in and through stillness.

It seems that most people need to experience a great deal of suffering before they will relinquish resistance and accept - before they will forgive.

Different ages have certain approaches, which may be more effective for one age and no longer effective in another age. The world that we live in now has much greater density to it; it is much more all-pervasive. And when I say "world," I include the human mind in it. The human mind has grown even since the time of the Buddha, 2,500 years ago. The human mind is more noisy and more all-pervasive, and the egos are bigger.

When you are trapped in a nightmare, your motivation to awaken will be so much greater than that of someone caught up in a relatively pleasant dream.

When I'm with people, I'm a spiritual teacher. That's the function, but it's not my identity. The moment I'm alone, my deepest joy is to benobody, to relinquish the function of a teacher. It's a temporary function.