Next, feel your heart, literally placing your hand on your chest if you find that helpful. This is a way of accepting yourself just as you are in that moment, a way of saying, "This is my experience right now, and it's okay." Then go into the next moment without any agenda.

At some point, we realize that what we do for ourselves benefits others, and what we do for others benefits us.

The real thing that we renounce is the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are.

In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.

One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are. That’s not considered to be a problem. The point is to see it.

Not causing harm requires staying awake. Part of being awake is slowing down enough to notice what we say and do. The more we witness our emotional chain reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. It becomes a way of life to stay awake, slow down, and notice.

We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.