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

The trouble is that you think you have time.

When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness.

Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world.

As surely as there is a voyage away, there is a journey home.

In spiritual life there is no room for compromise. Awakening is not negotiable; we cannot bargain to hold on to things that please us while relinquishing things that do not matter to us. A lukewarm yearning for awakening is not enough to sustain us through the difficulties involved in letting go. It is important to understand that anything that can be lost was never truly ours, anything that we deeply cling to only imprisons us.

In the end, forgiveness simply means never putting another person out of our heart.