Sometimes people feel disappointed when they hear about practicing compassion: "You mean I have to be nice?" It's kind of a letdown. We often overlook compassion, seeing it as merely a pit stop on the way to more advanced practices. We want something more; we don't even know what. But that's just a trick of our mind. One of the greatest teachings is to practice compassion.

This is bravery: using the challenge of daily life to sharpen our mind and open our heart.

If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.

Our mind is always subject to being distracted by thoughts of what happened in the past and ideas of what could happen in the future, but the living experience is what is happening NOW.

When we are using this term 'basic goodness,' we are talking about our inherent completeness.

To shift the direction of our planet, we must now be willing to experiment with the theory that within the speed and stress, we are good.

It seems we all agree that training the body through exercise, diet, and relaxation is a good idea, but why don't we think about training our mind?