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

Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?

Don’t worry about achieving. Don’t worry about perfection. Just be there each moment as best you can.

By becoming intimate with how we close down and how we open up, we awaken our unlimited potential.

The still lake without ripples is an image of our minds at ease, so full of unlimited friendliness for all the junk at the bottom of the lake that we don't feel the need to churn up the waters just to avoid looking at what's there.

Rather than going after our walls and barriers with a sledgehammer, we pay attention to them. With gentleness and honesty, we move closer to those walls. We touch them and smell them and get to know them well. We begin a process of acknowledging our aversions and our cravings. We become familiar with the strategies and beliefs we use to build the walls: What are the stories I tell myself? What repels me and what attracts me? We start to get curious about what’s going on.

By the way that we think and by the way that we believe in things, in that way our world is created.