When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we stay present to the pain of disapproval or betrayal and let it soften us, these are times that we connect with bohdichitta.

All ego really is, is our opinions, which we take to be solid, real, and the absolute truth about how things are.

Everything in our lives has the potential to wake us up or put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken us is up to us.

Everything that human beings feel, we feel. We can become extremely wise and sensitive to all of humanity and the whole universe simply by knowing ourselves, just as we are.

Just where you are-that's the place to start!

If it's painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you. You learn to embrace it.

Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.