Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom.

If your mind is expansive and unfettered, you will find yourself in a more accommodating world, a place that's endlessly interesting and alive. That quality isn't inherent in the place but in your state of mind.

Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we're stuck.

Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.

On the journey of the warrior-bodhisattva, the path goes down, not up, as if the mountain pointed toward the earth instead of the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward turbulence and doubt however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, companions in awakening from fear.

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals.

In practicing meditation, we're not trying to live up to some kind of ideal -- quite the opposite. We're just being with our experience, whatever it is.