People around us change and circumstances change. We can often find ourselves struggling against those things.

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 American culture especially, and Western culture in general, urges us to not only become the best that we can be, but also win against the competition.

If we're trying to get the perfect house, the perfect relationship or the perfect job, it's likely there's some kind of fear driving us beyond the natural wish to improve. It's really the refusal to acknowledge that life - including ourselves - is simply not perfect.

Knowledge is immensely powerful and immensely useful.

Day by day, tiny specks of us float away.

There is a stillness in all of us that is really the essence of who we are. A stillness and a silence that doesn't move, that doesn't go anywhere and our task is to experience that while being in time.