“Higher values propel and elevate us toward happiness, fulfillment, and meaning. Lower values demote us toward anxiety, depression, and suffering.”

It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.

Every night when I’m falling asleep, I say to myself, I am relaxed, energized, and focused. I am calm, enthusiastic, and productive.

Monks understand that routine frees your mind, but the biggest threat to that freedom is monotony. People complain about their poor memories, but I’ve heard it said that we don’t have a retention problem, we have an attention problem.

Never trust a spiritual leader who cannot dance.

Actually, the greatest detachment is being close to everything and not letting it consume and own you. That’s real strength.

Sometimes we can trace our fears through the actions we take, and sometimes it’s the actions we’re reluctant to take

Cancers of the Mind: Comparing, Complaining, Criticizing.

We can’t stop our parents from dying, but we use the fear to remind us to spend more time with them.

Tracking my fear of exam results and the other branch fears that appeared led me to the root: fearing I couldn’t make my parents happy

Your dharma has to fill a need in the world

You don’t get to be a jerk just because you’re skilled.

Our values are influenced by whatever absorbs our minds.

I am happy about who I am becoming. I am open to all opportunities and possibilities. I am worthy of real love. I am ready to serve with all I have.

Our search is never for a thing, but for the feeling we think the thing will give us.

Life’s too short to live without purpose, to lose our chance to serve, to let our dreams and aspirations die with us.

Everything you do is your spiritual life.

When I get high anxiety, I vomit. My mom was so stressed out. Then I found out I was staying in John Mayer’s old dorm room, and I had a nice roommate. That completely brought me down. I was completely comfortable at Berklee.

There is something fresh and crisp about the first hours of a Caribbean day, a happy anticipation that something is about to happen, maybe just up the street or around the next corner.

Curled up in a ball slowly shutting down as my body is being devoured by those ugly, fearsome monsters that have lived in my guts ever since I could remember.

No one is moved to act, or resolves to speak a single word, who does not hope by means of this action or word to release anxiety from his spirit.

This is not my phrase, but if you’re stuck in the past, then you’re depressed. If you’re stuck in the future, then you’re anxious.

Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul, except sin. God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry.

Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and His will.

Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.