Happiness is closer to the experience of acceptance and contentment than it is to pleasure. True happiness exists as the spacious and compassionate heart's willingness to feel whatever is present.

Our future experiences will be colored by the choices we make in the present.

God has abandoned you. Fear does not serve you. Your heart has betrayed you. Only the music can guide you.

We come to understand the law of casuality - that is, we see that all beings are experiencing what they're experiencing based on their own actions and not by what we wish for them - and therefore we relax in a deep understanding and acceptance of the way things are.

Everything is unfolding based on causes and conditions. Our happiness or suffering is dependent on how we relate to the present moment. If we cling now, we suffer later. If we let go and respond with compassion or friendliness, we create happiness and well-being for the future.

Renunciation is not about pushing something away, it is about letting go. It's facing the fact that certain things cause us pain, and they cause other people pain. Renunciation is a commitment to let go of things that create suffering. It is the intention to stop hurting ourselves and others.

With mindfulness we have the choice of responding with compassion to the pain of craving, anger, fear and confusion. Without mindfulness we are stuck in the reactive pattern and identification that will inevitably create more suffering and confusion.