The independence and rebelliousness of our adolescence offer us yet another quality essential to our practice; the insistence that we find out the truth for ourselves, accepting no one’s word above our own experience.
Two qualities are at the root of all meditation development: right effort and right aim – arousing effort to aim the mind toward the object.
The way I treat my body is not disconnected from the way I treat my family or the commitment I have to peace on our earth.
The wholeness and freedom we seek is our true nature, who we really are.
We can bring our spiritual practice into the streets, into our communities, when we see each realm as a temple, as a place to discover that which is sacred.
Equanimity arises when we accept the way things are.
It is not enough to know that love and forgiveness are possible. We have to find ways to bring them to life.
A factor that greatly supports the opening of energy in practice is exercise and care of the physical body.
Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection with all things.
There is no higher happiness than peace.
In all practices and traditions of freedom, we find the heart’s task to be quite simple. Life offers us just what it offers, and our task is to bow to it, to meet it with understanding and compassion.
The Sufis have a saying: “Praise Allah, and tie your camel to a post.” This brings together both parts of practice: pray, yes, but also make sure that you do what is necessary in the world.
As long as you are trying to be something other than what you actually are, your mind wears itself out. But if you say, ‘This is what I am, it is a fact that I am going to investigate and understand,’ then you can go beyond.
What would we have to hold in compassion to be at peace right now? What would we have to let go of to be at peace right now?
True love is not for the faint-hearted.
The first level of practice is illuminated by the qualities of courage and renunciation.
You have to accept the way things are before you can move on.
With mindfulness, we are learning to observe in a new way, with balance and a powerful disidentification.
Without being aware of it, you take many things as being your identity: your body, your race, your beliefs, your thoughts.
Skill in concentrating and steadying the mind is the basis for all types of meditation.
As desire abates, generosity is born. When we are connected and present, what else is there to do but give?