You are completely at choice who you will be today in your interactions with others. Compassionate, kind, giving and forgiving will create one set of probabilities; angry, judgmental, critical and defensive will create another one altogether.

I find being a mother harder than I though it was going to be. That is a tremendous revelation for me personally. Much more time, more care, more attention and more effort needs to be spent on care for the children. That will save the world at large.

When you are dealing with a serious compulsion or addictive pattern, then by definition self-will, self-discipline, and any other machinations of the conscious mind are not enough by themselves to handle the problem. It is like a breaker switch in your brain is simply flipped. Anybody who has had this kind of a problem knows that it doesn't matter how intelligent you are. Sigmund Freud said, "Intelligence will be used in the service of the neurosis."

Happiness requires that we give up a worldly orientation-not worldly things, but a worldly attachment to things. We have to surrender all outcomes. We have to live here but appreciate the joke.

These are very serious times, and serious people need to be doing some serious thinking.

Of course, a woman's choice to go out into the world is a very significant thing. But part of real liberation is recognizing that mothering is every bit as important as other kinds of work. I actually believe it's more important than anything we do out in the world.

You receive the light through what you read, through what you hear in meditation, or through some spiritual practice.