There is only one way of attaining liberation and of obtaining the omniscience of enlightenment: following an authentic spiritual master.

The masters say if you create an auspicious condition in your body and your environment then meditation and realization will automatically arise.

Each time the losses and deceptions of life teach us about impermanence, they bring us closer to the truth. When you fall from a great height, there is only one possible place to land: on the ground-the ground of truth. And if you have the understanding that comes from spiritual practice, then falling is in no way a disaster, but the discovery of an inner refuge.

We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don't know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.

Tertön Sogyal, the Tibetan Mystic, said that he was not really impressed by someone who could turn the floor into the ceiling or fire into water. A real miracle, he said, was if someone could liberate just one negative emotion.

What should we "do" with the mind in meditation? Nothing. Just leave it, simply, as it is.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes with the voice of the Buddha.