We can learn the art of fierce compassion - redefining strength, deconstructing isolation and renewing a sense of community, practicing letting go of rigid us-vs.-them thinking - while cultivating power and clarity in response to difficult situations.

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.

Meditation teaches us to focus and to pay clear attention to our experiences and responses as they arise, and to observe them without judging them.

Loving-kindness and compassion are the basis for wise, powerful, sometimes gentle, and sometimes fierce actions that can really make a difference - in our own lives and those of others.

Compassion allows us to use our own pain and the pain of others as a vehicle for connection. This is a delicate and profound path. We may be adverse to seeing our own suffering because it tends to ignite a blaze of self-blame and regret. And we may be adverse to seeing suffering in others because we find it unbearable or distasteful, or we find it threatening to our own happiness. All of these possible reactions to the suffering in the word make us want to turn away from life.

Mindfulness, also called wise attention, helps us see what we’re adding to our experiences, not only during meditation sessions but also elsewhere.

Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves.