The idea of karma is that you continually get the teaching that you need to open your heart.

But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.

Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego.

Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what is going on, but that there is something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.

Holding on to anything blocks wisdom.

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.

We sow the seeds of our future hells or happiness by the way we open or close our minds right now.