It isn't the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it's how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer.

This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and to cling to pleasure.

Everything is fresh, the essence of realization.

The third noble truth says that the cessation of suffering is letting go of holding on to ourselves.

The root of compassion, is compassion for oneself.

Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.

We insist on being Someone, with a capital S. We get security from defining ourselves as worthless or worthy, superior or inferior. We waste precious time exaggerating or romanticizing or belittling ourselves with a complacent surety that yes, that’s who we are. We mistake the openness of our being—the inherent wonder and surprise of each moment—for a solid, irrefutable self. Because of this misunderstanding, we suffer.