Meditation isn't to disappear into the light. Meditation is to see all of what we are.

Hell is not fire and brimstone, not a place where you are punished for lying or cheating or stealing. Hell is wanting to be something and somewhere different from where you are.

Why do so many of us not give ourselves permission to be alive until we are absolutely assured that we will die? ...If we are not in [this present millisecond of life and conscious experience], we are not alive; we are merely thinking our lives. Yet we have seen so many die, looking back over their shoulders at their lives, shaking their heads and muttering in bewilderment, "What was that all about?"

Simply touching a difficult memory with some slight willingness to heal begins to soften the holding and tension around it. (74)

Our work is to keep our hearts open in hell.

Quoting son, Noah Levine: Once you see what the heart really needs, it doesn’t matter if you’re going to live or die, the work is always the same. (25)

Relate to the fear, not just from it. (50)