You are the mystery incarnating itself, and it's beautiful when you remember. It's also painful and awesome and it contains unbearable beauty and unfathomable pain - the ocean of tears and galaxy of bliss. I don't say that lightly, but it's what we have.

Where we tended to be judgmental, we became more judgmental of ourselves in our spiritual practice.

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

If we are engaged in actions that cause pain and conflict to ourselves and others, it is impossible for the mind to become settled, collected, and focused in meditation; it is impossible for the heart to open.

In sitting on the meditation cushion and assuming the meditation posture, we connect ourselves with the present moment in this body and on this earth.

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.

Tending to ourselves, we tend the world. Tending the world, we tend ourselves.