“It’s not what happens in life that bothers us. It’s what we’re believing about it that bothers us.”

So there’s only transcendence in the moment. Nobody can be transcended forever. That’s why I say, “Who cares if you’re enlightened forever?”

Life just happens. It’s what you’re believing about life that makes you suffer.

That’s the purpose of stress. It’s a friend. It’s an alarm clock, built in to let you know that it’s time to do The Work.

The only way I can be angry at you is when I have thought, said, or done something that is unkind in my own opinion.

When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result.

The mind usually says, “I know, I know, I know.” But the “don’t-know mind” is where wisdom lives.

When we’re not defending and justifying, and we’re being very still, our answers can and do shock us.

Any thought of discomfort or stress is an alarm that lets you know you’re believing an untrue thought.

It’s difficult to seek other people’s love. It’s deadly. In seeking it you lose what is genuine. This is the prison we create for ourselves as we seek what we already have.

Nothing outside you can ever give you what you’re looking for.

Who would you be without the thought that happiness depends on someone else?

After you’ve been doing inquiry for a while, if you have the thought “She doesn’t love me,” you just get the immediate turnaround with a smile: “Oh, I’m not loving myself in this moment.”

My experience is that the teachers we need most are the people we’re living with right now.

Put your stressful thoughts on paper, question them, and have a great life.

The whole world is simply my story, projected back to me on the screen of my own perception. All of it.

I stopped waiting for the world to give me what I wanted; I started giving it to myself.