Sometimes people's spiritual ideas become fixed and they use them against those who don't share their beliefs - in effect, becoming fundamentalist. It's very dangerous - the finger of righteous indignation pointing at someone who is identified as bad or wrong.

Every day is a new opportunity to work with what you have inside toward enlightenment.

Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself.

Remember that this is not something we do just once or twice. Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime.

Next, feel your heart, literally placing your hand on your chest if you find that helpful. This is a way of accepting yourself just as you are in that moment, a way of saying, "This is my experience right now, and it's okay." Then go into the next moment without any agenda.

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.

Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.