Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth

Sitting meditation gives us a way to move closer to our thoughts and emotions and to get in touch with our bodies.

Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what is going on, but that there is something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.

Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.

We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.

Meditation isn't really about getting rid of thoughts, it's about changing the pattern of grasping on to things, which in our everyday experience is our thoughts.

There's nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.