Find a gap between a trigger event and our usual conditioned response to it and by using that pause to collect ourselves and shift our response

Meditation trains the mind the way physical exercise strengthens the body.

I stepped onto the spiritual path moved by an inner sense that I might find greatness of heart, that I might find profound belonging, that I might find a hidden source of love and compassion. Like a homing instinct for freedom, my intuitive sense that this was possible was the faint, flickering, yet undeniable expression of faith.

When we see the relatedness of ourselves to the universe, that we do not live as isolated entities, untouched by what is going on around us, not affecting what is going on around us, when we see through that, that we are interrelated, then we can see that to protect others is to protect ourselves, and to protect ourselves it to protect others.

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

Meditation is not the construction of something foreign, it is not an effort to attain and then hold on to a particular experience. We may have a secret desire that through meditation we will accumulate a stockpile of magical experiences, or at least a mystical trophy or two, and then we will be able to proudly display them for others to see.

Things don't just happen in this world of arising and passing away. We don't live in some kind of crazy, accidental universe. Things happen according to certain laws, laws of nature. Laws such as the law of karma, which teaches us that as a certain seed gets planted, so will that fruit be.