Life without forgiveness is unbearable.

To let go in the deepest recesses of the heart, to release all struggle and wanting, leads us to that knowing which is timeless.

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

Expressing gratitude to our benefactors is a natural form of love. In fact, some people find loving kindness for themselves so hard, they begin their practice with a benefactor. This too is fine. The rule in loving kindness practice is to follow the way that most easily opens your heart.

Even the most exalted states and the most exceptional spiritual accomplishments are unimportant if we cannot be happy in the most basic and ordinary ways, if we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given with our hearts.

We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.

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.