Embodied courage chooses not to wait until illness or notice of death demands attention.

Since death will take us anyway, why live our life in fear? Why not die in our old ways and be free to live?

We each need to make our lion's roar - to persevere with unshakable courage when faced with all manner of doubts and sorrows and fears - to declare our right to awaken.

It is the basic principle of spiritual life that we learn the deepest things in unknown territory. Often it is when we feel most confused inwardly and are in the midst of our greatest difficulties that something new will open. We awaken most easily to the mystery of life through our weakest side. The areas of our greatest strength, where we are the most competent and clearest, tend to keep us away from the mystery.

Letting go does not mean not caring about things. It means caring about them in a flexible and wise way.

Great spiritual traditions are used as a means to ripen us, to bring us face to face with our life, and to help us to see in a new way by developing a stillness of mind and a strength of heart.

To let go in the deepest recesses of the heart, to release all struggle and wanting, leads us to that knowing which is timeless.