It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.
How will we experience the world a month, a year, or five years from now? Will we be even angrier, more grasping and fearful, or will some shift have occurred? This depends entirely on the tendencies we reinforce today.
The future is completely open and we are writing it moment to moment.
The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
Rejoicing in the good fortune of others is a practice that can help us when we feel emotionally shut down and unable to connect with others. Rejoicing generates good will.
Treat yourself as your own beloved child.
All the wars, all the hatred, all the ignorance in the world come out of being so invested in our opinions.
There comes a time when the bubble of ego is popped and you can’t get the ground back for an extended period of time. Those times, when you absolutely cannot get it back together, are the most rich and powerful times in our lives.
If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart...
The most important aspect of being on a spiritual path may be to just keep moving.
Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.
Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.
If you follow your heart, you’re going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.
As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.
Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path.
Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what’s going on.
Allow situations in your life to become your teacher.
The next step is to learn to communicate with the people that you feel are causing your pain and misery- not to learn how to prove them wrong and yourself right but how to communicate from the heart.
You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts.
We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.