If you're invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.

Many people hope a spiritual practice will let them avoid what they are ashamed of. But when you hide something from yourself, you are going to project it onto your world. You continually find it in others and it becomes the source of prejudices and dogmatic views. On top of that, you feel bad about yourself, because you aren't the loving, open-minded, "spiritual" person you'd like to be.

If you work with your mind, instead of trying to change everything on the outside, that's how your temper will cool down.

The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.

As each breath goes out, let it be the end of that moment and the birth of something new. . .

One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are. That’s not considered to be a problem. The point is to see it.

We spend all our energy and waste our lives trying to re-create these zones of safety, which are always falling apart. That's the essence of samsara - the cycle of suffering that comes from continuing to seek happiness in all the wrong places.