Most of us grow up with a sense of "I'm not intelligent enough." It's such a sad thing that in the West we worship a certain kind of left-brain intelligence.

I recently read in the book My Stroke of Insight by brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor that the natural life span of an emotion—the average time it takes for it to move through the nervous system and body—is only a minute and a half. After that we need thoughts to keep the emotion rolling. So if we wonder why we lock into painful emotional states like anxiety, depression, or rage, we need look no further than our own endless stream of inner dialogue.

Most of us grow up with a sense of "I'm not intelligent enough." It's such a sad thing that in the West we worship a certain kind of left-brain intelligence.

If our hearts are ready for anything, we will spontaneously reach out when others are hurting. Living in an ethical way can attune us to the pain and needs of others, but when our hearts are open and awake, we care instinctively.

Compassion can be described as letting ourselves be touched by the vulnerability and suffering that is within ourselves and all beings. The full flowering of compassion also includes action: Not only do we attune to the presence of suffering, we respond to it.

I sometimes call this our "spacesuit self" because we come into an environment that is difficult and challenging, where we're told to be different. We're told to jump over hoops to be loved and appreciated, so we have to develop spacesuit strategies to get approval and create ways to avoid being judged.

I registered the dukkha of self-aversion with such clarity that I knew there was no freedom unless I could love this life without holding back. This didn't mean I was going to ignore my flaws and stop seeking to improve what I could. But in the deepest way, I was not going to fixate on the conclusion that something was wrong with me.