We are so programmed to feel that our emotions are the most important thing in the Universe...We write, produce and act in the story of me. And then we write reviews - and read them and get more depressed. All we can do is let go, and that comes from training. And then we spend less and less time in the darker spaces.

Let's just chant and be good people, alright?

The only real protection will come from doing a spiritual practice over a prolonged period of time. Because it retrains us to see the world and ourselves in a different way.

It's within your world that things will unfold and intuitive understandings will open up.

If you stub your toe, you don't need to dialog yourself to be good to your foot, do you? When you see things that clearly, there's no dialogue or emotional manipulation that you need to do to extend compassion to that being, because that being is a part of you, and if that being hurts, you hurt.

It's inexplicable why somebody can lose a leg and it doesn't effect them at all emotionally; and another person can lose a foot and be destroyed for the rest of their lives.

The heart is like a mirror. When we dust it off, we are able to see ourselves. The dust is all our stuff - guilt, anger - this stuff is reflected back to us. Practice removes the dust from the mirror of our hearts.