Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us.

It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.

It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share.

The idea of karma is that you continually get the teaching that you need to open your heart.

If we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. It just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves.

The most heartbreaking thing of all is how we cheat ourselves of the present moment.

Fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.