It's important to remember, when we're out there aggressively working for reform, that, even if our particular issue doesn't get resolved, we are adding peace to the world. We have to do our best and at the same time give up all hope of fruition.

Tonglen practice begins to dissolve the illusion that each of us is alone with this personal suffering that no one else can understand.

In practicing meditation, we're not trying to live up to some kind of ideal -- quite the opposite. We're just being with our experience, whatever it is.

Enlightenment is a direct experience with reality.

If you work with your mind, that will alleviate all the suffering that seems to come from the outside.

Simply be present with your own shifting energies and with the unpredictabilit y of life as it unfolds.

Although it is embarrassing and painful, it is very healing to stop hiding from yourself. It is healing to know all the ways that you’re sneaky, all the ways that you hide out, all the ways that you shut down, deny, close off, criticize people, all your weird little ways. You can know all of that with some sense of humor and kindness. By knowing yourself, you’re coming to know humanness altogether. We are all up against these things. We are all in this together.