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

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

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

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

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

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.

The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.

Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can't simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.

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

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.

Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.

We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

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.

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

Sticking with uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic—this is the spiritual path.

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

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.

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

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