What brings the karmic result from the patterns of our actions is not our action alone. As we intend and then act, we create [our] karma: so another key to understanding the creation of karma is becoming aware of intention. The heart is our garden, and along with each action there is an intention that is planted like a seed. The result of the patterns of our karma is the fruit of these seeds.

The awakened heart and mind can be experienced as clarity itself, pure knowing.

Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection with all things.

We need a repeated discipline, a genuine training, in order to let go of our old habits of mind and to find and sustain a new way of seeing.

To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit.

Nirvana manifests as ease, as love, as connectedness, as generosity, as clarity, as unshakable freedom. This isn’t watering down nirvana. This is the reality of liberation that we can experience, sometimes in a moment and sometimes in transformative ways that change our entire life

When we let go of yearning for the future, preoccupation with the past, and strategies to protect the present, there is nowhere left to go but where we are. To connect with the present moment is to begin to appreciate the beauty of true simplicity.