Our conceptions of the world affect our perceptions of the world which, in turn, condition the way we subsequently conceive the world.

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.

I reject karma and rebirth not only because I find them unintelligible, but because I believe they obscure and distort what the Buddha was trying to say. Rather than offering the balm of consolation, the Buddha encouraged us to peer deep and unflinchingly into the heart of the bewildering and painful experience that life can so often be.

The Buddha described his teaching as "going against the stream." The unflinching light of mindful awareness reveals the extent to which we are tossed along in the stream of past conditioning and habit. The moment we decide to stop and look at what is going on (like a swimmer suddenly changing course to swim upstream instead of downstream), we find ourselves battered by powerful currents we had never even suspected - precisely because until that moment we were largely living at their command.

To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is the ground for unsentimental compassion and love.

Without a rigorous, self-critical discourse, one risks lapsing into pious platitudes and unexamined generalizations.

Our conceptions of the world affect our perceptions of the world which, in turn, condition the way we subsequently conceive the world.