Trauma never goes away completely, it changes perhaps, softens some with time, but never completely goes away.

We are looking for a way to feel more real, but we do not realize that to feel more real we have to push ourselves further into the unknown.

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.

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

If aspects of the person remain undigested-cut off, denied, projected, rejected, indulged, or otherwise unassimilated-they become the points around which the core forces of greed, hatred and delusion attach themselves.

One of the age-old truths about love is that while it offers unparalleled opportunities for union and the lifting of ego boundaries, it also washes us up on the shores of the loved one's otherness. Sooner or later, love makes us feel inescapably separate.

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