Buddhist words such as compassion and emptiness don't mean much until we start cultivating our innate ability simply to be there with pain with an open heart and the willingness not to instantly try to get ground under our feet. For instance, if what we're feeling is rage, we usually assume that there are only two ways to relate to it. One is to blame others. Lay it all on somebody else; drive all blames into everyone else. The other alternative is to feel guilty about our rage and blame ourselves.

The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.

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

Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn't just ourselves that we're discovering. We're discovering the universe.

We cannot be present and run our story-line at the same time.

Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.

All the wars, all the hatred, all the ignorance in the world come out of being so invested in our opinions.