What would we have to hold in compassion to be at peace right now? What would we have to let go of to be at peace right now?

The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?

The trouble is that you think you have time.

Even the most exalted states and the most exceptional spiritual accomplishments are unimportant if we cannot be happy in the most basic and ordinary ways, if we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given with our hearts.

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.

Acceptance does not mean inaction. We may need to respond, strongly at times...From a peaceful center we can respond instead of react. Unconscious reactions create problems. Considered responses bring peace. With a peaceful heart whatever happens can be met with wisdom...Peace is not weak; it is unshakable.

As we willingly enter each place of fear, each place of deficiency and insecurity in ourselves, we will discover that its walls are made of untruths, of old images of ourselves, of ancient fears, of false ideas of what is pure and what is not.