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

If our hearts are ready for anything, we are touched by the beauty and poetry and mystery that fill our world.

With an undefended heart, we can fall in love with life over and over every day. We can become children of wonder, grateful to be walking on earth, grateful to belong with each other and to all of creation. We can find our true refuge in every moment, in every breath.

When someone says to us, as Thich Nhat Hanh suggests, "Darling, I care about your suffering," a deep healing begins.

Discovering a richer quality of being-ness means to keep surrendering and letting go of resistance.

When we open to love, we become love.

Observing desire without acting on it enlarges our freedom to choose how we live.