It’s so easy to think that we’re the only ones who suffer, while other people are somehow immune to pain, as though they’d been born with some kind of special knowledge about being happy, that, through some cosmic accident, we never received. Thinking in this way, we make our own problems seem much bigger than they really are.

It’s so easy to think that we’re the only ones who suffer, while other people are somehow immune to pain, as though they’d been born with some kind of special knowledge about being happy, that, through some cosmic accident, we never received. Thinking in this way, we make our own problems seem much bigger than they really are.

Happiness and unhappiness are not primarily created by the material world or the physical body. First and foremost, they are decisions of the mind.

If you don’t try to stop whatever is going on in your mind, but merely observe it, eventually you’ll begin to feel a tremendous sense of relaxation, a vast sense of openness within your mind - which is in fact your natural mind, the naturally unperturbed background against which various thoughts come and go.

Ignorance, vulnerability, fear, anger, and desire are expressions of the infinite potential of your buddha nature. There's nothing inherently wrong or right with making such choices. The fruit of Buddhist practice is simply the recognition that these and other mental afflictions are nothing more or less than choices available to us because our real nature is infinite in scope.

Being human means having power; specifically, the power to accomplish whatever we want.

Though we may be genetically wired for temporary happiness, we've also been gifted with the ability to recognize within ourselves a more profound and lasting sense of confidence, peace, and well-being. Among sentient beings, human beings appear to stand alone in their ability to recognize the necessity to forge a bond between reason, emotion, and their instinct to survive, and in doing so create a universe-not only for themselves and the human generations that follow, but also for all creatures who feel pain, fear and suffering-in which we are all able to coexist contentedly and peaceably.