What comes up is not nearly as important as how you relate to what comes up.

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

For all of us, love can be the natural state of our own being; naturally at peace, naturally connected, because this becomes the reflection of who we simply are.

There's a famous quotation from the time the Buddha learned of the deaths of two of his greatest disciples: "It's as if the sun and the moon have left the sky." From that quotation, I would guess that while the Buddha loved all beings everywhere, with no exclusion, he also had relationships that were special to him, and he felt their loss.

As I go through all kinds of feelings and experiences in my journey through life -- delight, surprise, chagrin, dismay -- I hold this question as a guiding light: 'What do I really need right now to be happy?' What I come to over and over again is that only qualities as vast and deep as love, connection and kindness will really make me happy in any sort of enduring way.

To reteach a thing its loveliness is the nature of metta. Through lovingkindness, everyone & everything can flower again from within.

Compassion isn't morose; it's something replenishing and opening; that's why it makes us happy.