Depressed people think they know themselves, but maybe they only know depression.

The central premise of this book is that the Western psychological notion of what it means to have a self is flawed.

Uncovering your real desires can be terrifying. It can also set you spectacularly free.

To free desire from the tendency to cling, we have to be willing to stumble over ourselves.

Desire is a teacher: When we immerse ourselves in it without guilt, shame, or clinging, it can show us something special about our own minds that allows us to embrace life fully.

Meditation did not relieve me of my anxiety so much as flesh it out. It took my anxious response to the world, about which I felt a lot of confusion and shame, and let me understand it more completely. Perhaps the best way to phrase it is to say that meditation showed me that the other side of anxiety is desire. They exist in relationship to each other, not independently.

Anger is sign that something needs to change.