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.

I live in California, where there's a lot of driving entailed. I'm usually going somewhere to be on time to meet someone so I'm necessarily engaged in time. And yet, how can I in that moment of driving my car, be aware of that which is not going anywhere?

Wisdom and knowledge are two different things.

Be willing to be where you actually are. In my experience, that is the most inherently meaningful experience you can have.

Most of us make an effort to do and be the best we can be, which leads to a distinction we need to make between the notion of struggle and the notion of effort.

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.

When we turn our gaze to the inside, it becomes difficult to locate this familiar sense of self. To overcome that fear we need to feel special in some way.