We need courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit. But the place for this warrior strength is in the heart. We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy-mate rial or spiritual. We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.

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.

The awakened heart and mind can be experienced as clarity itself, pure knowing.

A factor that greatly supports the opening of energy in practice is exercise and care of the physical body.

A second quality of mature sirituality is kindness. It is based on a fundamental notion of self-acceptance.

In all practices and traditions of freedom, we find the heart's task to be quite simple. Life offers us just what it offers, and our task is to bow to it, to meet it with understanding and compassion.

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.