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?

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

Let the power of intention lead the way.

We all want to be happy. We need to expand the notion of what that means, to make it bigger and wiser.

The mind thinks thoughts that we don't plan. It's not as if we say, 'At 9:10 I'm going to be filled with self-hatred.

I will love myself as long as I never make a mistake.

In Buddhist teaching, ignorance is considered the fundamental cause of violence - ignorance... about the separation of self and other... about the consequences of our actions.