“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”

Nobody knows why they were born or where they come from.

Knowledge and achievements matter little if we do not yet know how to touch the heart of another and be touched.

Letting go does not mean not caring about things. It means caring about them in a flexible and wise way.

What is truly a part of our spiritual path is that which brings us alive. If gardening brings us alive, that is part of our path, if it is music, if it is conversation we must follow what brings us alive.

It is true that the heart has its seasons, just as a flower opens to the sunlight and closes to the night. We need to be respectful of those rhythms. But we can’t close down for long. It is our true nature to have an open heart.

Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.

May I be given the appropriate difficulties so that my heart can truly open with compassion. Imagine asking for that.

Live in joy, luminosity, and peace even among the troubles of the world. Remember who you are.

Love is based on our capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear, to trust a timeless truth bigger than all our difficulties.

The willingness to empty ourselves and then seek our true nature is an expression of great and courageous love.

May you know the beauty of your own true nature.

Part of spiritual and emotional maturity is recognizing that it’s not like you’re going to try to fix yourself and become a different person. You remain the same person, but you become awakened.

Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.

Everything has a beginning and an ending. Make peace with that and all will be well…In life we cannot avoid change, we cannot avoid loss. Freedom and happiness are found in the flexibility and ease with which we move through change.

The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.

At the end of our life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?