Sometimes when I generalize, I am saying, 'Let's pretend I am God,' and of course the other person argues that point endlessly. But I notice that if the other person takes a stand for himself and states his thoughts as his thoughts, I pay more attention to what he is saying and look deeper in myself.

A messy mortal is my friend. Come walk with me in the mud.

The ego, as a collection of our past experiences, is continually offering miserable lines of thought. It's as if there were a stream with little fish swimming by, and when we hook one of them there is a judgment. The ego is constantly judging everybody and everything. It has its constant little chit chat about things that can happen in the future, things about the past, too, and these are the little fish that swim by. And what we learn to do-this is why it takes work-is to not reach out and grab a fish.

Whenever we condemn, we cloak the world in pain.

It's not that "today is the first day of the rest of my life," but that now is all there is of my life.

Negative feedback is better that none. I would rather have a man hate me than overlook me. As long as he hates me I make a difference.

Problems assault us to the degree they preoccupy us. The key to release, rest, and inner freedom is not the elimination of all external difficulties. It is letting go of our pattern of reactions to those difficulties.