By not knowing, not hoping to know and not acting like we know what's happening, we begin to access our inner strength.

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

Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior's world.

Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.

Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself.

It's hard to know whether to laugh or to cry at the human predicament. Here we are with so much wisdom and tenderness, and—without even knowing it—we cover it over to protect ourselves from insecurity. Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego.

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.