“They know deep down that certain things in their lives are working or aren’t working, that certain parts of their lives are functional and others are dysfunctional. But sometimes, as human beings, we don’t want to know what’s not convenient. So we pretend not to know.”

True meditation has no direction or goal. It is pure wordless surrender, pure silent prayer.

Take one step backward into the unknown.

The joke of it all is that you are looking from your true nature right now without knowing it. If you would stop being fascinated with the contents of your mind, you would experience what I am saying.

To be here, all you have to do is let go of who you think you are. That’s all! And then you realize, “I’m here.” Here is where thoughts aren’t believed. Every time you come here, you are nothing.

If you think that people should be nice to one another, then by all means be nice. But when you project that belief onto the people and the world around you as if it were an objective reality, or worse still.

The perspective of Love doesn’t leave anybody out. Until your vision and compassion is big enough to include those who oppose you, you are simply contributing to the continuation of destructiveness . The end of separation is the salvation for all.

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.

They often reveal much about themselves in a very straightforward way. I am certain that I did. There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.

You know, I think there are certain words like ‘illegitimate’ that should not be used to describe a person.

We may think that we love certain people, but we don’t know how profoundly we love them.

Canada was certainly an additional option for the many traveling the treacherous terrain of the Underground Railroad in pursuit of what was perceived as “freedom.”

Certain temperaments respond to anxiety by pulling inward.

Maybe [success] is because I’m in China and I’m more open. Maybe it’s my independent behavior, or because I participated in certain projects. I have no idea.

To call yourself a Chinese artist or woman artist or African artist reflects a certain kind of condition. To me, that is not necessary.

Being such a tomboy growing up, that was one thing that changed me as a person, as well. It broadened me, like me cracking myself open in a certain way.