Each of us has a genuine capacity for love, forgiveness, wisdom and compassion. Meditation awakens these qualities so that we can discover for ourselves the unique happiness that is our birthright.

Sometimes people don't trust the force of kindness. They think love or compassion or kindness will make you weak and kind of stupid and people will take advantage of you; you won't stand up for other people.

I am totally amazed at the spread of interest in meditation. When I first came back from studying in India in 1974, I would be asked in social situations what I did. When I replied, "I teach meditation" they would frequently look at me as though to say "That is weird," and sort of sidle away.

In a single moment we can understand we are not just facing a knee pain, or our discouragement and our wishing the sitting would end, but that right in the moment of seeing that knee pain, we're able to explore the teachings of the Buddha. What does it mean to have a painful experience? What does it mean to hate it, and to fear it?

Loving-kindness and compassion are the basis for wise, powerful, sometimes gentle, and sometimes fierce actions that can really make a difference - in our own lives and those of others.

As we look around, it's very clear that in this world people do outrageous things to one another all of the time. It's not that these qualities or actions make us bad people, but they bring tremendous suffering if we don't know how to work with them.

Voting is like alchemy - taking an abstract value and breathing life into it.