No amount of outer technology, no amount of computers and biotechnology and nanotechnology is going to stop the continuation of warfare and racism and environmental destruction. What's called for on the Earth at this time is really a change of heart ... the question is really not the future of humanity, but the presence of eternity.

When repeated difficulties do arise, our first spiritual approach is to acknowledge what is present, naming, softly saying 'sadness, sadness', or 'remembering, remembering', or whatever.

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.

We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.

In opening we can see how many times we have mistaken small identities and fearful beliefs for our true nature and how limiting this is. We can touch with great compassion the pain from the contracted identities that we and others have created in the world.

It is our commitment to wholeness that matters, the willingness to unfold in every deep aspect of our being.

Beneath the sophistication of Buddhist psychology lies the simplicity of compassion. We can touch into this compassion whenever the mind is quiet, whenever we allow the heart to open.