As we practice meditation, we get used to stillness and eventually are able to make friends with the quietness of our sensations.

It is so powerful when we can leave behind our ordinary identities, no longer think of ourselves primarily as a conductor, or writer, or salesclerk, and go to a supportive environment to deeply immerse in meditation practice.

Some things hurt, you know, and there's pain. But we magnify the suffering of it often, I think, by our reactions.

It doesn't matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn't matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years - we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on.

True giving is a thoroughly joyous thing to do. We experience happiness when we form the intention to give, in the actual act of giving, and in the recollection of the fact that we have given. Generosity is a celebration. When we give something to someone we feel connected to them, and our commitment to the path of peace and awareness deepens.

Find a gap between a trigger event and our usual conditioned response to it and by using that pause to collect ourselves and shift our response

Rapture is the gateway to nirvana.