Are you experiencing restlessness? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What's for lunch? Stay! I can't stand this another minute! Stay!

What if rather than being disheartened by the ambiguity, the uncertainty of life, we accepted it and relaxed into it?

Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It's the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid.

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.

When we feel left out, inadequate, or lonely, can we take a warrior’s perspective and contact bodhichitta?

The most heartbreaking thing of all is how we cheat ourselves of the present moment.

Better to join in with humanity than to set ourselves apart.