“We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.”

Even Socrates, who lived a very frugal and simple life, loved to go to the market. When his students asked about this, he replied, “I love to go and see all the things I am happy without.

To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own.

Equanimity arises when we accept the way things are.

Every facet, every department of your mind, is to be programmed by you. And unless you assume your rightful responsibility, and begin to program your own mind, the world will program it for you.

The person who betrayed you is sunning themselves on a beach in Hawaii and you’re knotted up in hatred. Who is suffering?

The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner’s mind.

To live fully is to let go and die with each passing moment, and to be reborn in each new one.

The grief we carry is part of the grief of the world. Hold it gently. Let it be honored. You do not have to keep it in anymore. You can let go into the heart of compassion; you can weep.

We can always begin again.

Within each of us there is a silence as vast as the universe. We long for it. We can return to it.

We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart.

Life is so hard, how can we be anything but kind?

To undertake a genuine spiritual path is not to avoid difficulties but to learn the art of making mistakes wakefully, to bring them to the transformative power of our heart.

Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings.

When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice.

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

Our darkest days were probably infused by the patterns we once needed to protect ourselves. – burden.

A smile across the aisle of a bus in the morning could save a suicide later in the day.

Wake up! No one is going to save you. No one is going to take care of your family or your retirement. No one is going to “make things” work out for you. The only way to do so is to utilize every moment of every day at 10X levels.

God doesn’t want religious duty. He doesn’t want a distracted, half-hearted, ‘Fine, I’ll read a chapter, now are You happy?’ attitude. God wants His word to be a delight to us, so much that we meditate on it day and night.

I don’t mind cloudy days. And how could I? My heart has cloudy days too.

In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice…, the path of faith, the path of hope, and the path of love toward our fellow man.

No one ever gets far unless he accomplishes the impossible at least once a day.

College students today are drowning in debt, and it is hurting them and hurting our economy. We must find a way to help families pay for college without condemning them to a lifetime of indebtedness.