We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.

We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.

Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.

It has a lot to do with developing patience, not with the check-out person so much, but with your own pain that arises, the rawness and the vulnerability, and sending some kind of warmth and love to that rawness and soreness. I think that's how we have to practice.

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

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.

This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted and shaky - that's called liberation.