The only way to ease our pain is to experience it fully. Learn to stay with uneasiness, learn to stay with the tightening, so that the habitual chain reaction doesn't continue to rule your life.

Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. Heartache is not something we choose to invite in. It's restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we can rest in the middle, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a relaxing and cooling loneliness that completely turns our usual fearful patterns upside down.

The Buddha taught that flexibility and openness bring strength and that running from groundlessness weakens us and brings pain. But do we understand that becoming familiar with the running away is the key? Openness doesn't come from resisting our fears but from getting to know them well

Buddhism itself is all about empowering yourself, not about getting what you want.

Sitting meditation gives us a way to move closer to our thoughts and emotions and to get in touch with our bodies.

Every day is a new opportunity to work with what you have inside toward enlightenment.

In the end, that's what we all need more than anything else: to be there for each other, in every kind of situation.