In this world there are two great sources of strength. One rests with those who are not afraid to kill. The other rests with those who are not afraid to love.

The purpose of a spiritual discipline is to give us a way to stop the war, not by our force of will, but organically, through understanding an gradual training.

In sitting on the meditation cushion and assuming the meditation posture, we connect ourselves with the present moment in this body and on this earth.

It only take a few minutes of meditation to directly realize we are a river of sensations, feelings, thoughts, perceptions. How can we navigate this evanescent river of life wisely? With mindful awareness and love it becomes clear. You can fight against the river of change, or use its wisdom to teach you how to graciously move and create and flow with the full measure of joy and sorrow, gain and loss, praise and blame that make up every human incarnation.

We can always begin again.

Thich Nhat Hanh has the ability to express some of the most profound teachings of interdependence and emptiness I've ever heard. With the eloquence of a poet, he holds up a sheet of paper and teaches us that the rain cloud and the tree and the logger who cut the tree down are all there in the paper. He's been one of the most significant carriers of the lamp of the dharma to the West that we have had.

No matter how difficult the past, you can always begin again today.