The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.

Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.

If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.

We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.

You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.

As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals.

The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.

The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.

The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find out that something is not what we thought.

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.

The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.

The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.

When things fall apart and we're on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize.

Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with.

Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts.

Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.