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

In practicing meditation, we're not trying to live up to some kind of ideal -- quite the opposite. We're just being with our experience, whatever it is.

Without loving-kindness for ourselves, it is difficult, if not impossible, to genuinely feel it for others.

Mindfulness is loving all the details of our lives, and awareness is the natural thing that happens: life begins to open up, and you realize that you're always standing at the center of the world.

The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval,we are practicing disapproval. When we buy into harshness,we are practicing harshness.

Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

Softening what is rigid in our hearts.