In this there is no judgment and no blame, for we seek not to perfect the world but to perfect our love for what is on this earth.

Anger shows us precisely where we are stuck, where our limits are, where we cling to beliefs and fears.

As desire abates, generosity is born. When we are connected and present, what else is there to do but give?

Love is based on our capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear, to trust a timeless truth bigger than all our difficulties.

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.

Thich Nhat Hanh has the ability to express some of the most profound teachings of interdependence and emptiness I've ever heard. With the eloquence of a poet, he holds up a sheet of paper and teaches us that the rain cloud and the tree and the logger who cut the tree down are all there in the paper. He's been one of the most significant carriers of the lamp of the dharma to the West that we have had.

Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war.