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

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

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

Buddhism teaches us that happiness does not come from any kind of acquisitiveness, be it material or psychological. Happiness comes from letting go. In Buddhism, the impenetrable, separate, and individuated self is more of the problem than the solution.

The willingness to face traumas - be they large, small, primitive or fresh - is the key to healing from them. They may never disappear in the way we think they should, but maybe they don’t need to. Trauma is an ineradicable aspect of life. We are human as a result of it, not in spite of it.

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.

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.