When we feel left out, inadequate, or lonely, can we take a warrior’s perspective and contact bodhichitta?

Ego is like a room of your own, a room with a view with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like. You want it your own way. You'd just like to have a little peace, you'd like to have a little happiness, you know, just gimme a break.

Discomfort of any kind becomes the basis for practice. We breathe in knowing our pain is shared.

Each of us has a "soft spot": the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, and it is equally inherent in pain.

By not knowing, not hoping to know and not acting like we know what's happening, we begin to access our inner strength.

The more we witness our emotional reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain.

If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and we'll find that more areas of our lives are workable. AS we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others-what and whom we can work with, and how-becomes wider.