The light around someone who speaks truth, who consistently acts with compassion for all, even in great difficulty, is visible to all around them.

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

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. We can love and care for others but we cannot possess our children, lovers, family, or friends. We can assist them, pray for them, and wish them well, yet in the end their happiness and suffering depend on their thoughts and actions, not on our wishes.

Every individual in the world has a unique contribution.

When we let go of yearning for the future, preoccupation with the past, and strategies to protect the present, there is nowhere left to go but where we are. To connect with the present moment is to begin to appreciate the beauty of true simplicity.

Virtue and integrity are necessary for genuine happiness. Guard your integrity with care.

We need to learn how to honor and use a practice for as long as it serves us—which in most cases is a very long time—but to look at it as just that, a vehicle, a raft to help us cross through the waters of doubt, confusion, desire, and fear.