What's encouraging about meditation is that, even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we're closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance.

Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.

None of us is ever OK, but we all get through everything just fine.

If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.

Opening to the world begins to benefit ourselves and others simultaneously. The more we relate with others, the more quickly we discover where we're blocked.

By becoming intimate with how we close down and how we open up, we awaken our unlimited potential.

Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future. In other words, if we're going to be more cheerful in the future, it's because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.