Knowledge and achievements matter little if we do not yet know how to touch the heart of another and be touched.

We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart.

We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy—material or spiritual.

To undertake a genuine spiritual path is not to avoid difficulties but to learn the art of making mistakes wakefully, to bring them to the transformative power of our heart.

When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness.

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. We can love and care for others but we cannot possess our children, lovers, family, or friends. We can assist them, pray for them, and wish them well, yet in the end their happiness and suffering depend on their thoughts and actions, not on our wishes.

Great pain, when it is honored from the heart, opens into great understanding.