We can find true refuge within our own hearts and minds-right here, right now, in the midst of our moment-to-momen t lives.

We are continually experiencing the conditioning to hold on, tighten, or resist.

I want to accept myself completely, just as I am.

The main thing going on around intimacy is that we've developed a lot of strategies so we'll be a desirable package.

If our hearts are ready for anything, we can open to our inevitable losses, and to the depths of our sorrow. We can grieve our lost loves, our lost youth, our lost health, our lost capacities. This is part of our humanness, part of the expression of our love for life.

If you let someone know you appreciate him or her, especially when you're going to disagree, it gets that person's defenses down.

As I noticed feelings and thoughts appear and disappear, it became increasingly clear that they were just coming and going on their own. . . . There was no sense of a self owning them.