Meditation is not about getting out of ourselves or achieving something better. It is about getting in touch with what you already are.

Never give up on yourself. Then you will never give up on others.

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

What you do for yourself, any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself, will affect how you experience your world. In fact, it will transform how you experience the world. What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself.

If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That’s the true practice of peace.

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

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless.