“Live in joy, luminosity, and peace even among the troubles of the world. Remember who you are.”

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.

No matter how difficult the past, you can always begin again today.

A second quality of mature spirituality is kindness. It is based on a fundamental notion of self-acceptance.

Love in its purest form is a sharing of joy. It asks nothing in return, it expects nothing. Love is a spiritual phenomenon; lust is physical. Ego is psychological; love is spiritual.

Comedy is a high form of art becaus it brings us more joy than anything else.

Finding joy is probably tantamount to finding yourself and being comfortable in your own skin.

Without pain, how could we know joy?

One of the advantages of being disorganized is the joy of discovery.

We’re a nation hungry for more joy: Because we’re starving from a lack of gratitude.

Once you have started seeing the beauty of life, ugliness starts disappearing. If you start looking at life with joy, sadness starts disappearing.

The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security.