When we sit down to meditate, we connect with something unconditional - a state of mind, a basic environment that does not grasp or reject anything. Meditation is probably the only activity that doesn't add anything to the picture. Everything is allowed to come and go without further embellishment. Meditation is a totally nonviolent, non aggressive occupation. Not filling the space, allowing for the possibility of connecting with unconditional openness - this provides the basis for real change.

The root of compassion, is compassion for oneself.

We see how beautiful and wonderful and amazing things are, and we see how caught up we are. It isn’t that one is the bad part and one is the good part, but that it’s a kind of interesting, smelly, rich, fertile mess of stuff. When it’s all mixed up together, it’s us: humanness.

This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we go.

We sow the seeds of our future hells or happiness by the way we open or close our minds right now.

I'm here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away.

Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?