Each soul on earth is complete unto itself.

I don't personally believe in an arrived state of enlightenment. I feel that being human is a constant practice of return. We have moments of clarity, and then we're confused. We have incredibly sensitive periods of being awake, and then we're numb. Being human is a very universal and a very personal practice of learning how to return when we can't get access to what we know.

The many ways to listen have been reaching into me for years. To enter deep listening, I've had to learn how to keep emptying and opening, how to keep beginning. I've had to lean into all I don't understand, accepting that I am changed by what I hear.

To be broken is no reason to see all things as broken.

There are many ways that we grow, but there are two major ways: We shed what no longer works, or we're broken open. If we're unwilling to shed, then we will be broken open. Through shedding, we are worn down, just as nature is eroded to its beauty. I think that through suffering, human beings are eroded to our beauty.

By our very nature, we are a human paradox. We are a human being. The being is infinite and the human is very finite. We walk around like lightening in a bottle.

Perhaps the noblest private act is the unheralded effort to ... open our hearts once they've closed, to open our souls once they've shied away.