But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.

Maybe the most important teaching is to lighten up and relax. It's such a huge help in working with our crazy mixed-up minds to remember that what we're doing is unlocking a softness that is in us and letting it spread. We're letting it blur the sharp corners of self-criticism and complaint.

Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.

Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.

Tonglen dissolves your solid sense of "I'm the wise person, I'm going to help this poor, unfortunate loser."

You see, there really is no separation between you and everyone else.

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.