To learn to concentrate we must choose a prayer or meditation and follow this path with commitment and steadiness, a willingness to work with our practice day after day, no matter what arises.

Where we tended to be judgmental, we became more judgmental of ourselves in our spiritual practice.

Grant that I have enough suffering that my heart really opens to the great compassion of this world, that I be given enough so that I don't wall myself off from the world, that it breaks down the heart and the separation and the ego and the fear, and it lets me touch the nectar, the milk of kindness itself, of something greater.

The aim of spiritual life is to awaken a joyful freedom, a benevolent and compassionate heart in spite of everything.

Whatever you believe cosmologically, we all know the tears of the world. We each carry a certain measure of those tears in our hearts.

If you put a spoonful of salt in a cup of water it tastes very salty. If you put a spoonful of salt in a lake of fresh water the taste is still pure and clear. Peace comes when our hearts are open like the sky, vast as the ocean.

The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind.