We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.

Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings.

The first level of practice is illuminated by the qualities of courage and renunciation.

All of spiritual practice is a matter of relationship: to ourselves, to others, to life's situations.

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.

Part of spiritual and emotional maturity is recognizing that it's not like you're going to try to fix yourself and become a different person. You remain the same person, but you become awakened.

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.