I bring my attention to my hands on the steering wheel and notice how the chatter in my mind begins to fall away as my breathing slows. I'm awake and alive, simply driving the car going where I need to go, on time and in time. A still point of the turning world. With that awareness, I bring my attention into my body, and the body is the doorway to the timeless, because the body is always where we are and always in the present moment.

The great French Impressionist painter Renoir, right at the end of his very long life, said to a friend, "I am just now learning to paint." Renoir carried his gift with a humility which realized how much he still had to learn. Anyone who goes deeply into a field in life and realizes this, gains a sense of proportion that can only make you humble.

The heart, like the grape, is prone to delivering its harvest in the same moment it appears to be crushed.

The more we enter our own gifts, the more we feel that sense of proportion. In that sense, I think our life lies in the fulfillment of those potentialities, whatever they may be.

I woke up early one morning a couple of years ago and felt the tenderness of my being alone, the bitter sweetness of it. It has many colors, being alone. I walked out into my living room and I can say honestly that everything was pouring with life - the red sofa, the chairs with their patterns of roses, even the coffee table with its scattering of books. Everything was alive with the presence of being. Seeing the world though those eyes, I realized that I could never really be alone.

When we fall utterly, something gathers us up. But our falling must be without reservation, without expectation, without hope, though not hopeless. You cant plan that kind of falling. When you abandon yourself utterly to life, the river will flow, and the log jam will free. Impossible is another word for grace. Who wouldve thought it, life takes another turn, and you are gathered up into a whole different way of seeing and being.

A knowing of what needs to be done or what needs to be said or what needs to happen at any given time. That is wisdom and wisdom does not come from the accumulation of knowledge.