In taking the everyday details of life for granted, we fail to appreciate the extraordinary fact that we are conscious at all.

To preserve the integrity of the tradition, we have to distinguish between what is central to that integrity and what is peripheral. We have to discern between what elements are vital for the survival of dharma practice and what are alien cultural artefacts that might obstruct that survival.

A secular approach is not a dumbing down, it's not reductively identifying Buddhism with one or two particular techniques of meditation, but it is actually a complete world view and way of life in this world.

What is it that makes a person insist passionately on the existence of metaphysical realities that can be neither demonstrated nor refuted? (176)

We can be consicous of how we tend to ignore or escape anguish rather than understand and accept it. We can be aware that even when we gain insight into these things, we rarely behave differently in the future. Despite our overt resolve, we are still creatures of habit.

We could decide simply to remain absorbed in the mysterious, unformed, free-play of reality. This would be the choice of the mystic who seeks to extinguish himself in God or Nirvana—analogous perhaps to the tendency among artists to obliterate themselves with alcohol or opiates. But if we value our participation in a shared reality in which it makes sense to make sense, then such self-abnegation would deny a central element of our humanity: the need to speak and act, to share our experience with others.

The greatest threat to compassion is the temptation to succumb to fantasies of moral superiority.