“If you tell yourself a sad story, the body reacts to that. And if you tell yourself a self-aggrandizing story, the body feels puffed up, confident. But when you realize it’s all stories, there can be a vast waking up out of the mind, out of the dream.”

When someone tells you, ‘I love you,’ and then you feel, ‘Oh, I must be worthy after all,’ that’s an illusion. That’s not true. Or someone says, ‘I hate you,’ and you think, ‘Oh, God, I knew it; I’m not very worthy,’ that’s not true either.

The truth is that you already are what you are seeking.

There is no security in freedom, at least not in the sense that we normally think of security. This is, of course, why it is so free: there’s nothing there to grab hold of.

You are not your story. They are not your story about them. The world is not your story about the world.

When we’re in our true being, the purpose of life is to feel that every moment is the purpose.

No matter what identity we cling to, it takes great courage to step out of the old masks we wear and the old scripts that we live by, and open ourselves to the mysterious inner core of our being.

Concentration is a way in which we are actually directing or guiding or controlling our experience. Meditation is letting go of control, letting go of guiding our experience in any way whatsoever. The foundation of True Meditation is that we are letting go of control.

Cessation of struggle is like free falling through space without a care in the world.

It has no intention to harmonize. It has no agenda. It just happens. The Truth is the only thing you’ll ever run into that has no agenda. Everything else will have an agenda.

To see things as you see them or to see things differently—until you have given the whole world its freedom—you’ll never have your freedom.

Question your thoughts. Question your stories. Question your assumptions. Question your opinions. Question your conclusions. Question them all into utter emptiness, stillness and joy. The keys to freedom are in your hands. Use them.

Whatever you can become will ultimately be destroyed. Only what you already are can’t be taken away.

The most challenging thing for the spiritual seeker to do is to stop struggling.

Your life, all of your life, is your path to awakening. By resisting or not dealing with its challenges, you stay asleep to Reality. Pay attention to what life is trying to reveal to you. Say yes to its fierce, ruthless, and loving grace.

The middle way is an invitation to leap beyond nirvana and samsara and to realize the unborn Buddha mind right in the middle of everywhere.

Most spiritual seekers move away from this insecurity by seeking and striving for a distant spiritual goal. That’s how they avoid feeling insecure.

You don’t awaken, what has eternally been awake realizes itself. That which is eternally awake is what you are.