The still lake without ripples is an image of our minds at ease, so full of unlimited friendliness for all the junk at the bottom of the lake that we don’t feel the need to churn up the waters just to avoid looking at what’s there.
What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself.
Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us.
Never underestimate the desire to bolt.
We’re not trying to be something we aren’t; rather, we’re reconnecting with who we are.
One way to practice staying present is to simply sit still for a while and listen. For one minute, listen to the sounds close to you. For one minute, listen to the sounds at a distance. Just listen attentively.
Patience has nothing to do with suppression. In fact, it has everything to do with a gentle, honest relationship with yourself.
Holding on to anything blocks wisdom.
We sow the seeds of our future hells or happiness by the way we open or close our minds right now.
Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.
Fear itself is the vanguard of wisdom.
Things are as bad and as good as they seem. There’s no need to add anything extra.
We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be.
We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.
Sitting meditation gives us a way to move closer to our thoughts and emotions and to get in touch with our bodies.
Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.
Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom.
It is a commitment to respect whatever life brings that we develop wholehearted determination to use discomfort as an opportunity for awakening, rather than trying to make it disappear.
Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive.
In meditation, you learn how to get out of your own way long enough for there to be room for your wisdom to manifest.