By understanding how all things arise together, you shift from viewing yourself as acting upon and realizing all things, to a new vision of seeing all things coming forth and realizing you.

Taking refuge means that you align and orient your life toward Buddha's example and toward enlightenment.

According to Shakyamuni Buddha, it's normal for human beings to be anxious, because it's normal for human beings not to understand themselves. When you don't understand yourself, you're uncomfortable and scared. When you realize that you're anxious, Buddha's teaching is to practice being patient with it.

The fundamental delusion of human beings is the belief that we exist separately and independently from the rest of the universe.

You have to sit with your life and feel how you hold it, and be willing for the release to happen. It will happen spontaneously, because it's already so.

By understanding how all things arise together, you shift from viewing yourself as acting upon and realizing all things, to a new vision of seeing all things coming forth and realizing you.

If we turn away from our sexual passion, then we freeze and beings are harmed. If we grab it, then we are burned and beings are harmed. But if we just stay close to it, walk around it, always in touch with the fact that we are sexual beings, neither identifying with nor distancing ourselves from our sexuality, then we gradually become intimate with it.