When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into it’s dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment

The teacher will never give up on the student no matter how mixed up he or she might be

There's a reason you can learn from everything: you have basic wisdom, basic intelligence, and basic goodness.

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.

Difficult things provoke all your irritations and bring your habitual patterns to the surface. And that becomes the moment of truth. You have the choice to launch into your lousy habitual patterns, or to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation and let it transform you.

One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are. That’s not considered to be a problem. The point is to see it.

Tonglen practice begins to dissolve the illusion that each of us is alone with this personal suffering that no one else can understand.