“When you care about perfection, you care about an expectation. But there is also caring for where I am right now, for what’s happening right now.”

You can’t do the same stroke coming down a small stream as you would coming down Niagara Falls.

If we weren’t attached we wouldn’t be overwhelmed. It’s endless. And we just take one step after the next

Let me give you a wonderful Zen practice. Wake up in the morning…look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself.

The extraordinary language of Nonviolent Communication is changing how parents relate to children, teachers to students, and how we all related to each other and even to ourselves. It is precise, disciplined, and enormously compassionate.

Even if you’re only rowing down a stream, different things happen: maybe the wind changes, maybe the current, and suddenly everything’s different. So gently is really important.

In that state you’ve immediately raised the mind of compassion, because if nothing is in, everything is in, and you are now free to experience yourself as the world.

I always tell people that if you get upset over what someone says, imagine him or her with a clown’s nose on and you won’t get so angry.

The basic problem, actually, is how to get rid of the idea that we’re going to get rid of our problems. Only then can we relate directly with the real issues of our life.

Don’t make a whole to-do about it. Don’t get down on yourself be- cause you’re not an expert rower; don’t start reading too many books in order to do it right.

Don’t power yourself or blast through; rock with the way things are.

Each of is an arm of Kannon, enabling Kannon to do her work. Like her, we’re also overwhelmed, but when we reallize that the millions of pieces are all operating as one, then there’s no problem.

I honor businesses for what they do, I honor nonprofits for what they do, I honor government for what it does, and then I invite everyone to the table so that together we can come up with innovative and broad-based solutions that can serve as many people as possible.

It’s very rare to be in a state where there’s nothing in, where you have no attachment to any idea or concept about yourself.

When I spend time with students, they tell me that they’ve read something in a book or heard something from a teacher that they don’t think they’re living up to. And I tell them, “Take care of yourself right now.

We’re creating a little niche for ourselves instead of working the whole canvas.

Our work may be important, but we don’t take it too seriously. Otherwise, we get attached to one relatively small thing and ignore the rest of life.

Similarly, only people as misanthropic as myself can be counted on not to have to lie to others, since we have the unique luxury of not caring what sort of opinions others formulate about us.

I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful.

I have a medical condition, all right. It’s called caring too much, and it’s incurable. Also, I have eczema.

Selfish is caring for ourselves at others’ expense … Self-care is taking care of ourselves so that we can be there for others.

Trauma really does confront you with the best and the worst. You see the horrendous things that people do to each other, but you also see resiliency, the power of love, the power of caring.

I don’t care if you’re obscene, filthy, horrendous — as long as you’re honest.

The big-name stars . . . are always going to be playing what they’ve played before if they want to remain so-called A-list stars. That’s why someone like Johnny Depp is doing more interesting roles not caring about the size of the movie.

Spraying to kill trees and and raspberry bushes after a clear-cut merely looks unaesthetic for a short time, but tree plantations are deliberate ecodeath.