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

The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

Hell is just resistance to life.

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

Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know.

Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?

Instead of making others right or wrong, or bottling up right and wrong in ourselves, there's a middle way, a very powerful middle way...... Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice this way..... true communication can happen only in that open space.