My moods are continuously shifting like the weather.

Softening what is rigid in our hearts.

Tonglen dissolves your solid sense of "I'm the wise person, I'm going to help this poor, unfortunate loser."

Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean.

Many people hope a spiritual practice will let them avoid what they are ashamed of. But when you hide something from yourself, you are going to project it onto your world. You continually find it in others and it becomes the source of prejudices and dogmatic views. On top of that, you feel bad about yourself, because you aren't the loving, open-minded, "spiritual" person you'd like to be.

Everything in our lives has the potential to wake us up or put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken us is up to us.

We spend all our energy and waste our lives trying to re-create these zones of safety, which are always falling apart. That's the essence of samsara - the cycle of suffering that comes from continuing to seek happiness in all the wrong places.