We all have the ability to study the causes of suffering and gradually to free ourselves from them....it is not the magnitude of the task that matters, it's the magnitude of our courage.

Too much involvement with one's feeling [is destructive]. If they have too much self-centered feelings, they get in trouble.

Happiness is the main object of our aspirations, whatever name we give to it: fulfilment, deep satisfaction, serenity, accomplishment, wisdom, fortune, joy or inner peace, and however we try to seek it: creativity, justice, altruism, striving, completion of a plan or a piece of work.

Negative emotions like hatred destroy our peace of mind.

Isn't it the mind that translates the outer condition into happiness and suffering?

You get [something] in your body that is the suffering or the problem, and then you [add] a second one, which is worry. In both cases, [it is] pointless.

You're not insensitive or indifferent, but you're also not vulnerable to the upheavals that cause emotional stress because you can buffer that... So that's the result of meditation; you could call that emotional balance.