I eat because I am uncomfortable and avoiding something

I am defensive because I am afraid

Everything needs to come from inside. Act to please no one but your true self

Maitri = loving-kindness toward oneself

The great need for maitri and developing from that the awakening of a fearlessly compassionate attitude toward our own pain and that of others

We could step into uncharted territory and relax with the groundlessness of our situation

Dissolving the dualistic tension between us and them, this and that, good and bad, by inviting in what we usually avoid

Lean into the sharp points

Make friends with your own demons and their accompanying insecurity leads to a very simple, understated relaxation and joy

When I wasn't resting or looking at the ocean or walking the hills, I would get totally absorbed in reading through my talks

"Relax and write"

Settle down with your life and take these teachings on honesty, kindness, and bravery to heart

We all need to be reminded and encouraged to relax with whatever arises and bring whatever we encounter to the path

Just as they made friends with their egos and discovered wisdom mind, so can we

"Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news"

Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth

Sooner or later we will also encounter fear

Like all exploreres, we are drawn to discover what's waiting out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it

With insight meditation we begin practicing mindful ness, being fully present with all out activities and thoughts

With zen practice we hear teachings on emptiness and are challenged to connect with the open, unbounded clarity of mind

The vajrayana teachings introduce us to the notion of working with the energy of all situations, seeing whatever arises as inseparable from the awakened state

It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to

If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is no where to escape

We cannot be in the present and run our story lines at the same time

Impermanence becomes vivid in the present moment; so do compassion and wonder and courage

Anyone who stands on the edge of the unknown, fully in the present without reference point, experiences groundlessness

The arrogance that inevitably does arise is going to be continually shot down by our own courage to step forward a little further

Having the courage to die, the courage to die continually

Dissociating from fear is what we do naturally

The most heartbreaking thing of all is how we cheat ourselves of the present moment

Although we can't make fear look pretty, it will nevertheless introduce us to all the teachings we've ever heard or read

The next time you encounter fear, consider yourself lucky

We think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear

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

Nothing is what we thought

Let things fall apart and let ourselves be nailed to the present moment

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

"When you have made good friends with yourself, your situation will be more friendly too."

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

All about letting go of everythinng

When we are nailed with the truth, we suffer

We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved

The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy

Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don't know.

When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure

We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know

Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly. The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last

Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit

To stay with that shakiness

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

Every day, at the moment when things get edgy, we can just ask ourselves, 'Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to war?'

Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we're holding back

Those events and people in our lives who trigger our unresolved issues could be regarded as good news

We don't have to go hunting for anything

We don't need to try to create situations in which we reach our limit. They occur all by themselves

Being nailed by life, the place where you have no choice except to embrace what's happening or push it away

Meditation is an invitation to notice when we reach our limit and to not get carried away by hope and fear. Through meditation, we're able to see clearly what's going on with our thoughts and emotions, and we can also let them go

A sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us. Things like disappointment and anxiety are messengers telling us that we're about to go into unknown territory

What happens next?

The spiritual journey involves going beyond hope and fear, stepping into unknown territory, continually moving forward. The most important aspect of being on the spiritual path may be to just keep moving

We don't sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we'll be more awake in our lives

The first thing that happens in meditation is that we start to see what's happening. Even though we still run away and we still indulge, we see what we're doing clearly

How we stay in the middle between indulging and repressing is by acknowledging whatever arises without judgement, letting the thoughts simply dissolve, and then going back to the openness of this very moment

Acknowledge them and let them go. Then we come back to just being here. "Bring our mind back home"

After a while, that's how we relate with hope and fear in our daily lives. Out of nowhere, we stop struggling and relax. We stop talking to ourselves and come back to the freshness of the present moment

We're continually opening further, learning more, connecting further with the depths of human suffering and human wisdom, coming to know both those elements throughly and completely, and becoming more loving and compassionate people. And the teachings continue. There's always more to learn

The point is still to learn toward the discomfort of life and see it clearly rather than to protect ourselves from it

Just being with our experience, whatever it is

'This very moment is the perfect teacher, and it's always with us' is really a most profound instruction. Just seeing what's going on—that's the teaching right there. We can be with what's happening and not dissociate. Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our weird, unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives

It comes down to the question of just how willing we are to lighten up and loosen our grip. How honest do we want to be with ourselves?

Open their minds and relax. If thoughts distracted them, they could simply let the thoughts dissolve and just come back to that open, relaxed state of mind

25 percent of the attention should be on the breathe, so that one was still aware of one's surroundings and didn't consider them an intrusion or an obstacle to meditation

Relax more completely with our environment and to appreciate the world around us and the ordinary truth that takes place in every moment

As each breath went our and dissolved, there was a chance to die to all that had gone before and to relax instead of panic

Meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing

As meditators we might as well stop struggling against our thoughts and realize that honesty and humor are far more inspiring and helpful than any kind of solemn religious striving for or against anything

The point is not to try to get rid of thoughts, but rather to see their true nature. Thoughts will run us around in circles if we buy into them, but really they are like dream images. They are like an illusion—not really all that solid. They are, as we say, just thinking

What makes maitri such a different approach is that we are not trying to solve a problem. We are not striving to make pain go away or to become a better person. In fact, we are giving up control altogether and letting concepts of ideals fall apart

The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves. Yet it's never too late or too early to practice loving kindness

We can't attain enlightenment, let alone feel contentment and joy, without seeing who we are and what we do, without seeing our patterns and our habits. Matri—developing loving kindness and an unconditional friendship with ourselves

We can get so caught up in being good to ourselves that we don't pay any attention at all to the impact that we're having on others

What makes maitri such a different approach is that we are not trying to solve a problem. We are not striving to make pain go away or to become a better person. In fact, we are giving up control altogether and letting concepts and ideals fall apart

Realizing that whatever occurs is neither the beginning nor the end. It is just the same kind of normal human experience that's been happening to everyday people from the beginning of time. Thoughts, emotions, moods, and memories come and they go, and basic nowness is always here

It is never too late for any of us to look at our minds. We can always sit down and allow the space for anything to arise

We can always encourage ourselves to just be here again and again and again

How sad it is that we become so expert at causing harm to ourselves and others. The trick then is to practice gentleness and letting go. We can learn to meet whatever arises with curiosity and not make it such a big deal. Instead of struggling against the force of confusion, we could meet it and relax

We gradually discover that clarity is always there. In the middle of the worst scenario of the worst person in the world. Open space is always there

All over the world, people are so caught in running that they forget to take advantage of the beauty around them. We become so accustomed to speeding ahead that we rob ourselves of joy

The way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face to face

Cutting our expectations for a cure is gift we can give ourselves. There is no cure for hot and cold. They will go on forever

Being able to appreciate, being able to look closely, being able to open our minds—this is the core of maitri

Being preoccupied with our self-image is like being deaf and blind

There's so much resentment and so much resistance to life. Inn all nations, it's like a plague that's gotten out of control and is poisoning the atmosphere of the world

It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately filling up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness

Not harming ourselves or others in the beginning, not harming ourselves or others in the middle, and not harming ourselves or others in the end is the basis of enlightened society. This is how there could be a sane world. It starts with sane citizens, and that is us. 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

The ground of not causing harm is mindfulness, a sense of clear seeing with respect and compassion for what it is we see

It's a lifetime's journey to relate honestly to the immediacy of our experience annd to respect ourselves enough not to judge it

Our style is so ingrained that we can;t hear when people try to tell us, either kindly or rudely, that maybe we're causing some harm by the way we are or the way we relate with others

Because of mindfulness, we see our desires and our aggression, our jealousy and our ignorance. We don't act on theml we just see them. Without mindfulness, we don't see them

Mindfulness is the ground; refraining is the path

It's the quality of not grabbing for entertainment the minute we feel a slight edge of boredom coming on. It's the practice of not immediately filling up space just because there's a gap

Notice our physical movements were when we felt uncomfortable

Not to try to change anything, not to criticize ourselves for whatever we were doing, but just to see what we did

Underneath our ordinary lives, underneath all the talking we do, all the moving we do, all the thoughts in our minds, there's a fundamental groundlessness

We experience it as fear. It motivates passion, aggression, ignorance, jealousy, pride, but we never get down to the essence of it

If we immediately entertain ourselves by talking, by acting, by thinking—if there's never any pause—we will never be able to relax. We will always be speeding through our lives

Refraining is a way of making friends with ourselves at the most profound level possible

If you don't do what I say, I have no power

Because we have basic goodness, basic wisdom, basic intelligence, we can stop harming ourselves and harming others. Because of mindfulness, we see things when they arise

It all comes through learning to pause for a moment, learning not to just impulsively do the same thing again and again. It's a tranformative experience to simply pause instead of immeditately filling up space. By waiting, we being to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamnetal spaciousness. The result is that we cease to cause harm. We begin to know ourselves throughly and to respect ourselves. Anything can come up, anything can walk into our house; we can find anything sitting on our living-room couch, and we don't freee out. We have been thoroughly processed by coming to know ourselves, throughly processed by this honest, gentle mindfulness

This process connects us with the fruition of not causing harm—fundamental well-being of our body, speech, and mind

A thouroughly good relationship with ourselves results inn being still, which doesn;t mean we don't run and jump and dance about. It means there's no compulsiveness. We don't overwork, overeat, oversmoke, overseduce. In short, we begin to stop causing harm

Our speech is straightforward and disciplined. We don't start blurting out words just because no one else is talking and we're nervous

Our speech is tamed, and when we speak, it communicates. We don't waste the gift of speech in expressing our neurosis

Well-being of mind is like a mountain lake without ripples. When the lake has no ripples, everything in the lake can be seen. When the water is all churned up, nothing can be seen

Not causing harm requires staying awake. Part of being awake is slowing down enough to notice what we say and do

At the root of all the harm we cause is ignorance. Through meditation, that's what we begin to undo

Liberation naturally arises when we are completely here, without anxiety about imperfection

Without giving up hope—there's somewhere better to be, that there's someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are and who we are

Mindfulness is pointing to being one with our experience, not dissociating, being right there

The word mindfulness describes being right were we are

To thinnk that we can finally get it all together is unrealistic. To seek for some lasting security is futile. To undo our very ancient and very stuck habitaual patterns of mind requires that we being to turn around some of our most basic assumptions

Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide

Hopelessness means that we no longer have the spirit for holding our trip together

Trying to get lasting security teaches us a lot, because if we never try to do it, we never notice that it can't be done. Turning our minnds toward the dharma speeds up the process of discovery. At every turn we realize once again that it's completely hopeless—we can't get any ground under our feet

Theism is a deep-seated convication that there's some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us

Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves

Dharma is total appreciation of impermanence and change

For those who want something to hold on to, life is ever more inconvenient

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn't mean that something is wrong. Suffering is part of life

Hope and fear is a feeling with two sides. As long as there's one, there's always the other. This is the root of our pain

"Abandon hope"

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. We feel that someone else knows what's going on, but that there's something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in the world

The real thing that we renounce is the tanacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are. Renunciation is a teaching to inspire us to investigate what's happening every time we grab something because we can't stand to face what's coming

Notice when you instantly grab for something. That grabbing is based on hope. Not grabbing is called hopelessness

If hope and fear are two sides of one coin, so are hopelessness and confidence. If we're willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation

Taking refuge in the buddha, dharma, and sangha is about giving up hope of getting ground under our feet

Begin the journey without hope of getting ground under your feet. Begin with hopelessness

All anxiety, all dissatisfaction, all the reasons for hoping that our experience could be different are rooted in our fear of death

Whatever our style is, it's not simple. It's not bare bonens

Can't we just return to the bare bones? Can't we just come back? That's the beginning of the beginning. Bare bones, good old self

Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not reisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time—that is the basic message

Giving up hope is encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, to not run away from yourself, to return to the bare bones, no matter what's going on

If we totally experience hopelessness, giving up all hope of alternatives to the present moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest, direct relationship, one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence and death

We might feel that somehow we should try to eradicate these feelings of pleasure and pain, loss and gain, praise and lame, fame and disgrace. A more practical approach would be to get to know them, see how they hook us, see how they color our perception of reality, see how they aren't all that solid. Then the eight worldly dharmas become means for growing wiser as well as kinder and more content

When we are caught up in the eight worldly dharmas, we suffer

Many of our mood swings are related to how we interpret what happens. If we look closely at our mood swings, we'll notice that something always sets them off. We carry around a subjective reality always sets them off. We carry around a subjective reality that is continually triggering our emotional reactions

How do we react to what occurs? Are we attached to certain kinds of experiences? Do we reject or avoid others? How hooked do we get by these eight worldy dharmas?

The irony is that we make up the eight wordly dharmas. We make them up inn react to what happens to us in the world. They are nothing concrete in themselves. Even more strange is that we are not all that solid either. We have a concept of ourselves that we reconstruct moment by moment and relexively try to protect. But this concept that we are protecting is questionable. It's all 'much ado about nothing'—like pushing and pulling a vanishing illusion

We might feel that somehow we should try to eradicate these feelings. A more practical approach would be to get to know them, see how they hook up, see how they color our perception of reality, see how they aren't all that solid. Then the eight worldly dharmas become the means for growing wiser as well as kinder and more content

In meditation we can notice how emotions and moods are connected with having lost or gained something, having been praised or blamed

We can notice how what begins as a simple thought, a simple quality of energy, quickly blossoms into full-blown pleasure and pain

When we really look, we're going to see that we have nno control over what occurs at all. We have all kinds of mood swings and emotional reactions. They just come and go endlessly

'Wait a minute—what's going on here?'

We can feel that energy, do our best to let the thoughts dissolve, and give ourselves a break

The eight worldly dharmas (four pairs of opposites): pleasure and pain, loss and gain, fame and disgrace, and praise and blame

What pops up is out of our control, totally unpredictable, like the images in a dream

The human race is so predictable. A tiny thought arises, then escalates, and before we know what hit us, we're caught up in hope and fear

Completely awake, knowing from the very first moment that phenomena—both outer and inner—have no reality at all. What he didn't know was how everyday things functioned in his world

This inquisitive child has learned a powerful lesson about the workings of the world. The story goes that this breif but vivid encounter with praise and blame was all he needed to figure out the everyday operations of samsara

We can also use our lives this way. We can explore these familiar pairs of opposites inn everything we do. Instead of automatically falling into habitual patterms. we can begin to notice how we react when someonne praises us. When someone blames us, how do we react? When we've lost something, how do we react? When we feel we've gained something, how do we react? When we feel pleasure or pain, is it as simple as that? Do we just feel pleasure or pain? Or is there a whole libretto that goes along with it?

When we become inquisitive about things, look into them, see who we are and what we do, with the curiosity of a young child, what might seem like a problem becomes a source of wisdom. This curiousity begins to undercut what we call ego pain or self-centeredness, and we see more clearly. Usually we're just swept along by the pleasant or painful feelings. We're swept away by them in both directions; we spin off in our habitual style, and we don't even nnotice what's happening. Before we knnow it, we've composed a nnovel on why someone is so wrong, or why we are so right, or why we must get such-and-such. When we begin to understnad the whole process, it begin to lighten up considerable

We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off-limits to others. We're willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into sea

When we become more insightful and compassionate about how we ourselves get hooked, we spontaneously feel more tenderness for the human race

We start by simply looking into our own hearts and minds

We start by understanding that, just like us, other people also keep getting hooked by hope and fear. Everywhere we go, we see the mistery that comes from buying intot the eight wordly dharmas. It's also pretty obvious that people need help and that there's no way to benefit anybody unless we start with ourselves

Our motivation for practicing begins to change, and we desire to become tamed and reasonable for the sake of other people. We still want to see how the mind workds and how we get seduced by samsara, but it's not just for ourselves. It's for our companions, our children, our bosses—it's for the whole human dilemma

As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution

Meditation provides a way for us to train in the middle way—in staying right on the spot. We are encouraged not to judge whatever arises in our mind

There are six ways of describing this kind of cool loneliness: less desire, contentment, avoiding unnecessary activity, complete discipline, not wandering in the world of desire, and not seeking security from one's discusive thoughts

Less desire is the willingness to be lonely without resolution when everything in us yearns for something to cheer us up and change our mood

The second kind of loneliness is contentment. When we have nothing, we have nothing to lose

The third kind of loneliness is avoiding unnecessary activities. A way of keeping ourselves busy so we don't have to feel any pain

"If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things"

Complete discipline means that at every opportunity, we're willing to come back, just gently come back to the present moment

Sit still long enough to realize it's how things really are. We are fundamentally alone, and there is nothing anywhere to hold on to. This is not a problem. It allows us to finally discover a completely unfabricated state of being. Our habitual assumptions—all our ideas about how things are—keep us from seeing anything in a fresh, open way

We don't ultimately know anything. There's no certainty about anything

Coming back and relaxing with something as familiar as loneliness is good discipline for realizing the profundity of the unresolved moments in our lives

Wandering in the world of desire involves looking for alternatives, seeking something to comfort us—food, drink, people. The word desire encompasses that addiction quality, the way we grab for something because we want to find a way to make things okay. That quality comes from never having grown up

Not wandering in the world of desire is about relating directly with how things are. Loneliness is not a problem. Loneliness is nothing to be solved

With cool loneliness we do not expect security from our own internal chatter. That's why we are instructed to label it 'thinking.' It has no objective reality

Cool loneliness allows us to look honestly and without aggression at our own minds. 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 give it up and just look directly with compassion and humor at who we are

There are three truths of our existence: impermanance, suffering, and egolessness

Impermanence is the goodness of reality. Everything is constantly evolving

Impermananence is a principle of harmoney. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality

Our suffering is based so much on our fear of impermanence

Pain and pleasure go together

Everything that ends is also the beginning of something else

Feeling inspired cheers us up, makes us realize how vast and wonderful our wold is. Feeling wretched humbles us

The acknowledgement of egolessness, our natural state, is like regaining eyesught after having been blind or regaining hearing after having been deaf

Wakefulness naturally radiates out when we're not so concerned with ourselves

Ego could be defined as whatever covers up basic goodness

Egolessness is a state of mind that has complete confidence in the sacredness of the world

All the maras point the way to being completely awake and alive by letting go, by letting ourselves die moment after moment, at the end of each out-breath. When we wake up, we can live fully without seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, without re-creating ourselves when we fall apart

What we habitually regard as obstacles are not really our enemies, but rather our friends. What we call obstacles are really the way the world and our entire experience teach us where we're stuck. What may appear to be an arrow or a sword we can actually experience as a flower. Whether we experience what happens to us as obstacle and enemy or as teacher and friend depends entirely on our perception of reality. It depends on our relationship with ourselves

Perhaps nothing ever really attacks us except our own confusion

Maybe the only enemy is that we don't like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast.

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

The very same problem keeps returning with new names, forms, and manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening us, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves

When we feel embarrassed or awkward, when pain presents itself to us in any form whatsoever, we run like crazy to try to be comfortable

We are all addicted to avoiding pain. When pain arises, we reach again and again for something that will blot it out

Instead of struggling to regain our concept of who we are, we can touch in to that mind of simply not knowing, which is basic wisdom mind

We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. From the point of view of someone who is awake, that's death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self-contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn't have any fresh air. There's no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again

We can give up on being perfect and experience each moment to its fullest. Trying to run away is nnever the annswer to being a fully human being. Running away from the immediacy of our experience is like preferring death to life

Along with clear seeing, there's another important element, and that's kindness

How we regard what arises in meditation is training for how we regard whatever arises in the rest of our lives. The challenge is how to develop compassion right along with clear seeing, how to train in lightening up and cheering up rather than becoming more guilt-ridden and miserable. Otherwise, all the happens is that we all cut everybody else down, and we also cut ourselves down

From the very beginning to the very end, pointing to our own hearts to discover what is true isn't just a matter of honesty but also of compassion and respect for what we see

When we discover the Buddha that we are, we realize that everything and everyone is Buddha. We discover that everything is awake, and everyone is awake. Everything is equally precious and whole and good, and everyone is equally precious and whole and good

There's an interesting transition that occurs naturally and spontaneously. We begin to find that, to the degree that there is bravery in ourselves—the willingness to look, to point directly at our own hearts—and to the degree that there is kindness toward ourselves, there is confidence that we can actually forget ourselves and open to the world

The only reason that 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 the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless abbout looking into someone else's eyes

Then this experience of opening to the world begins to benefit ourselves and other simultaneously. The more we relate with others, the more quickly we discover where we are blocked, where we are unkind, afraid, shut down

When we apply the instruction to be soft and nonjudgemental to whatever we see right at the very moment, then this embarrassing reflection in the mirror becomes our friend. Seeing that reflection becomes motivation to soften further and lighten up more, because we know it's the only way we can continue to work with outers and be of any benefit to the world

That's the beginning of growing up. As long as we don't want to be honest and kind with ourselves. then we are always going to be infants. When we begin just to try to accept ourselves, the ancient burden of self-importance lightens up considerable. Finally there's room for genuine inquisitiveness, and we find we have an appetite for what's out there

Only in an open nonjudgemental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open . space where we're not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly

Compassionate action involves working with ourselves as much as working with others

Only in an open, nonjudgemental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we're not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly

Sooner or later, all our own unresolved issues will come up; we'll be confronted with ourselves

"Drive all blames into oneself"

When it hurts so bad, it's because I am handing on so tight

What it implies is that pain comes from holding on so tightly to having it our own way and that one of the main exits we take when we find ourselves unfomfortable, when we find ourselves in an unwanted situation or an unwanted place, is to blame

We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who's right and who's wrong

It is very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others. Blaming is a way to protect our hearts, to try to protect what is soft and open and tender in ourselves. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground

Things are fundamentally groundless

Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person right or wrong? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are?

But true communication can happen only in that open space

Everything is ambiguous; everything is always shifting and changing, and there are as many different takes on any given situation as there are people involved. Trying to find absolute rights and wrongs is a trick we play on ourselves to feel secure and comfortable

It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet. If we are willing through mediation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we're feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change

Compassionate action, being there for others, being able to act and speak in a way that communicates, starts with seeing ourselves when we start to makes ourselves right or make ourselves wrong

Bodhichitta is a Sanskirt word that means "noble or awakened heart"

Unwise selfish people think only of themselves, and the result is confusion and pain. Wise selfish people know that the best thing they can do for themselves is to be there for others. As a result, they experience joy

The practice of tonglen—sending and receiving—is a practice of taking in pain and sending out pleasure and therefore completely turns around our well-established habit of doing just the opposite

Tonglen is a practice of creating space, ventilating the atmosphere of our lives so that people can breathe freely and relax. Whenever we encounter suffering in any form, the tonglen instruction is to breathe it in with the wish that everyone could be free of pain. Whenever we encounter happiness in any form, the instruction is to breathe it out, send it out, with the wish that everyone could feel joy

When we walk around like we're expecting to be attacked, we block it. When we release the tension between this and that, the struggle between us and them, that's when bodhichitta will emerge

Whenever we let go of holding on to ourselves and look at the world around us, whenever we connect with sorrow, whenever we connect with joy, whenever we drop our resentment and complaint, inn those moments bodhichitta is here

Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt

We move toward it however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down

Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die

Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure. In the process, we become liberated from very ancient patterns of selfishness. We begin to feel love for both ourselves and others; we begin to take care of ourselves and others. Tonglen awakens our compassion and introduces us to a far bigger view of reality

In order to feel compassion for other people, we have to feel compassion for ourselves

What truely heals is gratitude and tenderness

The first five transcendent actions are generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, and meditation

The first paramita is generosity, the journey of learning how to give. When we feel inadaquate and unworthy, we hoard things

The basic idea of generosity is to train in thinking bigger

The more we experience fundamental richness, the more we can loosen our grip

Just be here very directly, then we find fundamental richness everywhere

The real transformation takes place when we let go of our attachment and give away what we think we can't. What we do on the outer level has the power to loosen up deep-rooted patterns of holding on to ourselves

When we hold on to our opinions with aggression, no matter how valid our cause, we are simply adding more aggression to the planet, and violence and pain increase. Cultivating nonagression is cultivating peace

In meditation we allow a lot of space, and then we begin to see whatever comes up with increasing clarity, with increasing vividness. We notice that we're churning out thoughts all the time and that there are also gaps in all that chatter

We have a lot of opinions, and we tend to take them as truth. But actually they aren't truth. They are just our opinions

Opinions are opinions, nothing more or less

We can just let those opinions go, and come back to the immediacy of our experience

Negativity begets negativity. In other words, no matter how well documented or noble our cause is, it won't be helped by our feeling aggression toward the oppressors or those who are promoting the danger. Nothing will ever change through aggression

The way to stop the war is to stop hating the enemy

The more clearly we can see, the more powerful our speech and our actions will be

When we're out there nonaggressively working for reform, that, even if our particular issue doesn't get resolved, we are adding peace to the world

Do everything as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered, while all the time knowing that it doesn't matter at all

We have to realize that part of helping keeping our clarity of mind, keeping our hearts and our minds open

There is nobody on the planet who doesn't have what it takes to wake up. We all nneed support and encouragement to be aware of what we think, what we say, and what we do

Cultivating a mind that does not grasp at right and wrong, you will find a fresh state of being

Never give up on yourself. Then you will never give up on others. Wholeheartedly do what it takes to awaken your clear-seeing intelligence, but one day at a time, one moment at a time. If we live that way, we will benefit this earth

Right there in the uncertainty of everyday chaos is our own wisdom mind

Instead of taking what's occurred as a statement of personal weakness or someone else's power, instead of feeling we are stupid or someone else is unkind, we could drop all the complaints about ourselves and others. We could be there, feeling off guard, not knowing what to do, just hanging out there with the raw and tender energy of the moment. This is the place where we begin to learn the meaning behind the concepts and the words

We're so used to running from discomfort, and we're so predictable

The next time there's no ground to stand on, don't consider it an obstacle. Consider it a remarkable stroke of luck. We have no ground to stand on, and at the same time it could soften us and inspire us

Realize that this mundane world is all there is, and we could see it with new eyes and at long last wake up from our ancient sleep of preconceptions

The state of nownness is available in that moment of squeeze. In that awkward, ambiguous moment is our own wisdom mind. Right there in the uncertainty of everyday chaos is our own wisdom mind

Right there in that inadequate, restless feeling is our wisdom mind. We ccan simply experiment. There's absolutely nothing to lose. We could experiment with not getting tossed around by right and wrong and with learning to relax with groundlessness

Not to jump over the big squeeze, but to look at it just as it is, not just out of the corner of an eye. Experience it fully, not as good or bad, but simply as unconditioned and ordinary

Through practice, we realize that we don't have to obscure the joy and openness that is present in every moment of our existence. We can awaken to basic goodness, our birthright

Connect with joy and discover our innermost essence

No more struggle

When we sit down to meditate, whatever arises in our minds we look at directly, call it "thinking," and go back to the simplicity and immediacy of the breath

Meditation practice is how we stop fighting with ourselves, how we stop stuggling with circumstances, emotions, or moods

Whatever arises, we can look at it with a nonjudgemental attitude

Whatever or whoever arises, train again and again in looking at it and seeing it for what it is without calling it names, without hurling rocks, without averting your eyes. Let all those stories go. The innermost essence of mind is without bias. Things arise and things dissolve forever and ever. That's just the way it is

We can stop struggling with what occurs and see its true face without calling it the enemy

Our practice is not about accomplishing anything—not about winning or losing—but about ceasing to struggle and relaxing as it is

We start by working with the monsters in our mind. Then we develop the wisdom and compassion to communicate sanely with the threats and fears of our daily life

"Approach what you find repulsive, help the ones you think you cannot help, and go to places that scare you."

Sit down and meditate and practice not struggling with our own mind

When anything difficult arises instead of trying to get rid of it, we breathe it in. The three poisons are passion, aggression, and ignorance

When suffering arises, let the story line go and breathe it in

Everything that occurs is not only usable and workable but is actually the path itself. We can use everything that happens to us as the means for waking up

Use poison as medicine, to use difficult situations to awaken our genuine caring for other people who, just like us, often find themselves in pain

Regard whatever arises as the manifestation of awakened energy

Regarding what arises as awakened energy reverses our fundamental habitual pattern of trying to avoid conflict, trying to make ourselves better than we are, trying to smooth things out and pretty them up, trying to prove that pain is a mistake and would not exist in our lives if only we did all the right things

Go to places that scare us

The elemental struggle is with our feeling of being wrong, with our guilt and shame and what we are. That's what we have to befriend. The point is that we can dissolve the sense of dualism between us and them, between this and that, between here and there, by moving toward what we find difficult and wish to push away

There is nothing to be embarrassed about

Chaos is part of our home ground. Instead of looking for something higher or purer, work with it just as it is

We can train in letting the story lines go. Slow down enough to just be present, let go of the multitude of judgements and schemes, and stop struggling. We can use every day of our lives to take a different attitude toward suffering. Instead of pushing it away, we can breathe it in with the wish that everyone could stop hurting, with the wish that people everywhere could experience contentment in their hearts. We could tranform pain into joy. We can ackknowledge that suffering exists, that darkness exists. The chaos in here and the chaos out there—this is basic energy, the play of wisdom. Whether we regard our situation as heaven or as hell depends on our perception. Couldn't we just relax and lighten up? When we wake up in the morning, we can dedicate our day to learning how to do this. We can cultivate a sense of humor and practice giving ourselves a break. Every time we sit down to meditate, we can think of it as training to lighten up, to have a sense of humor, to relax. 'Lower your standards and relax as it is.

We don't experience the world fully unless we are willing to give everything away. Samaya means not holding anything back, not preparing our escape route, not looking for alternatives, not thinking that there is ample time to do things later

Thinking that we have ample time to do things later is the greatest myth, the greatest hang-up, and the greatest poison. That, along with our continual, deep-setated tendency to try to get away from what we are doing, clouds our perceptions and our thinking

There really is no better time than right now; there is no higher state of consciousness than this one

Looking for alternatives is the only thing that keeps us from realizing that we're already in a sacred world. Looking for alternatives—better sights than we see, better sounds than we wear, a better mind than we have—keeps us from realizing that we could stand with pride in the middle of our life and realize it's a sacred mandala

We are bound to reality

We have to stop thinking that we can get away and settle down somewhere else. Instead, we could just relax

The world is alawys displaying itself, but we are so self-involved that we miss it

The experience of sticking with it, of not giving up, is one in which the whole world, everything that we see, becomes extremely vivid and more solid, and at the same time, less substantial and more transparent

We're nont talking about seeing anything other than the person sitting in front of us

The things we see all the time can pop us out of the painful cycle of samsara

If we stick with it, our experience becomes more vivid and more transparent, and we can no longer not get the message. And this is a message that never gets interpreted. Things speak for themselves

Every ordinary little peep or scratch or snicker, every little chewing sound or drinking sound or whatever, can wake us up. The idea of samaya is that if we don;t avoid our personal experience—if we don;t think there's a better, more inspiring, less irritating, or less disturbing sound—sounds become vivid and transparent

Our teacher is not separate from our experience. We realize that there is no alternative to the experience that we have. Our experience is the only experience there is. This is the ultimate teacher

The challenges are to give in, to surrender our way of doing things, and not to split when we feel threatened. Basically, the challenge is to be genuine—to feel our pounding heart or shaking knees or whatever it is, and stick with it

Through years and years of gentle training and honest, intelligent inquiry, we begin to trust our basic wisdom mind. We find that we have an essential wisdom, an essential good heart, that is stronger and more fundamental than our unkindness and agression

If we could have an unconditional relationship with even one person, we could have an unconditional relationship with the world

I commit myself to you totally with my body, speech, and mind

Our relationship with the phenomenal world has always been choiceless. We don't treally have a choice. The choice that we think we have is called ego. This choice that we think we have is what's keeping from realizing that we're in sacred world

The trick is to sit on the hot seat and have a commitment to our experience of hot-seatness

Do we take refuge in small, self-satisfied actions, speech, and mind? Or do we take refuge in warriorship, in taking a leap, in going beyond our usual safety zones?

Usually we feel that there's a large problem and we have to fix it. The instruction is to stop. Do something unfamiliar. Do anything besides rushing off in the same old direction, up the same old tricks

The key is changing our habits. The habits of our mind

I not only saw what I was doing, I also stopped. I stopped following through with my habitual plan to sasve the day. I decided nont to rush around trying to avert disaster

I decided to see what would happen without my input—even if that meant that everything would fall apart. Sometimes you have to let everything fall apart

Decide I wasn't going to act on my habitual momentum

We create our own reality, that what we preceive is our own projection

Lighten up and relax

By practicing without "shoulds" we gradually discover our wakefulness and our confidence

We assume responsibility for being here in this unpredictable world, in this unique moment, in this precious human body

Every act counts. Everything thought and emotion counts too

We are only going to be here for a short while

Our life will be too short for witnessing all its wonders. The dharma is each act, each thought, each word we speak. Are we at least willing to catch ourselves spinning off and to do that without embarrassment? Do we at least aspire to not consider ourselves a problem, but simply a pretty typical human being who could at any moment give him or herself a break and stop being so predictable?

If there's any possibility for enlightenment, it's right now, not at some future time. Now is the time

Bringing everything that we encounter to the path

The path is the goal

This path has one very distinct characteristic: it is not prefabricated. It doesn't already exist. The path that we're talking about is the moment-by-moment evolution of our experience, the moment-by-moment evolution of the world of phenomena, the moment-by-moment evolution of our thoughts and our emotions

We can't see where we're headed, only where we've been

The source of wisdom is whatever is going to happen to us today. The source of wisdom is whatever is happening to us right at this very instant

We're always in some kind of mood

That's the path

We can aspire to be kind right in this moment, to relax and open our heart and mind to what is in front of us right in the moment

Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future

If we're going to be more cheerful in the future, it's because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now

We could reflect on the fact that how we relate to this mess will be sowing the seeds of how we will relate to whatever happens next. We can make ourselves miserable, or we can make ourselves strong. The amountof effort is the same. Right now we are creating our state of mind for tomorrow, not to mention this afternoon, next week, next year, and all the years of our lives

Well-being is often a result of having been brave enough to be fully alive and awake to every moment of life, including all the lack of cheer, all the dark times, all the times when the clouds cover the sun. Through our own good spirit, we can be willing to relate directly with what's happening, with precision and gentleness. That's what creates fundamental cheerfulness, fundamental relaxation

When we realize that the path is the goal, there's a sense of workability

The instruction is not to try to solve a problem but instead to use it as a question about how to let this very situation wake us up further rather than lullus into ignnorance. We can use a difficult situation to encourage ourselves to take a leap, to step out into that ambiguity

Free or not free. This is our choice in every moment

People could experience their goodness and extend themselves

This book was wild. About dealing with the daily struggles of life and seeing them as just another part of the path and using them to help to get to know yourself so you can love yourself and live more in the present without judgment. Life is hard and no matter where you go or what you do, you will experience pain and suffering. It's about excepting it, living in it, and seeing how it is a blessing to further learn about yourself and the world, and love further