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

One of the primary conditions for suffering is denial. Shutting our mind to pain, whether in ourselves or others, only ensures that it will continue. We must have the strength to face it without turning away. By opening to the pain we see around us with wisdom and compassion, we start to experience the intimate connection of our relationship with all beings.

We are all too often told by someone that we are too old, too young, too different, too much the same, and those comments can be devastating.

We can travel a long way in life and do many things, but our deepest happiness is not born from accumulating new experiences. it is born from letting go of what is unnecessary, and knowing ourselves to be always at home.

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.

When we practice metta, we open continuously to the truth of our actual experience, changing our relationship to life.

The quality of mindfulness does not just know something is happening - e.g. there is an emotion, a sensation - but knows without clinging or condemning.