Any individual is capable of realizing the truth at any time. No tradition is necessary, no chain, no lineage. Once you have realized the truth, once you have become consciousness itself, then you go beyond all such distinctions.

Then on the other piece of paper, list all the people you know who are taking more than they're adding. Include people from the past.

Unhappiness is really an incorrect way of seeing. When we are unhappy we don't see life as it really is. We are in a condition of veiled light, of shadows.

The ideas that we have about self are an aggregate within a state of mind, and they chain us to a state of mind.

In meditation we get a sense of the countless selves within ourselves, the different forms they take. Those that don't seem positive or helpful we push aside. Those that seem progressive we enjoy.

Sometimes we have to be hard on ourselves. We've got to get on our case, if we are being sloppy, lazy, and indulgent.

It is most critical for a woman, or for a man who is very sensitive and opens up his heart, to be very selective about the people they have sex with.