We need the compassion and the courage to change the conditions that support our suffering. Those conditions are things like ignorance, bitterness, negligence, clinging, and holding on.

When you're wide open, the world is a good place.

Meditation is not a matter of trying to stop thinking or make your mind go blank but rather to realize when your attention is wandering and to simply let go of the thoughts and begin again. It is a way of changing our relationship to our thoughts, so we're not so consumed by them, with no sense of space. Having a newly spacious relationship to our thoughts brings both peace and freedom.

We long for permanence but everything in the known universe is transient. That's a fact but one we fight.

It is in the act of offering our hearts in faith that something in us transforms... proclaiming that we no longer stand on the sidelines but are leaping directly into the center of our lives, our truth, our full potential.

Meditation has made me happy, loving, and peaceful-but not every single moment of the day. I still have good times and bad, joy and sorrow. Now I can accept setbacks more easily, with less sense of disappointment and personal failure, because meditation has taught me how to cope with the profound truth that everything changes all the time.

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.