Conscience is all about using discernment, discrimination and assessment, rather than looking to the rather crude form of advice from the judge that's mostly attacking our sense of worth or value, instead of giving us helpful information.

There are plenty of times we need fierce compassion, fierce love. Just like when a child does something that is very harmful and we say "No!", we need some kind of fierceness. There's a certain kind of fierceness that can look like anger and has that fire of anger, but the difference is that it's not blinded with reactivity.

Nature teaches us simplicity and contentment, because in its presence we realize we need very little to be happy.

I often think people on opposite sides of the political spectrum may have similar values around care, around thriving or around independence, or around helping the disadvantaged, but they have different ideologies, different ideas and philosophies about how to go about that. It's important that we start to see each others humanness, while at the same time not losing sight of those differences, views and speeches and actions that do cause harm, that we're clearly taking a stand against.

In the Buddhist tradition, where mindful meditation comes from, anger is regarded as a somewhat unhealthy,unskillful emotion because we can be blinded by it. We don't see clearly and tend to do things and say things that are harmful out of the anger because we don't have clarity.

With mindfulness, we can be with the experience in more immediate way. When we find ourselves flooded with an emotion that's come after the judgement, we've often missed the very judgment that triggered the emotion.

We live with that sense of not being enough, and it causes a very painful state.