“Each person’s life is like a mandala – a vast, limitless circle. We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life … everything that shows up in your mandala is a vehicle for your awakening.”

Appreciate everything, even the ordinary. Especially the ordinary.

Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.

You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.

Feeling irritated, restless, afraid, and hopeless is a reminder to listen more carefully.

Feel the feelings and drop the story.

The best spiritual instruction is when you wake up in the morning and say, ‘I wonder what’s going to happen today.’ And then carry that kind of curiosity through your life.

Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.

All situations teach you, and often it’s the tough ones that teach you best.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive.

Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.

So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.

Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.

Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don’t lose your sense of perspective.

All the wars, all the hatred, all the ignorance in the world come out of being so invested in our opinions.

There is not a day that goes by that does not include a conversation with God. There is not a day that goes by that does not contain signs. There are many days that go by on which we do not hear the conversation, do not see the signs. So stay awake.

Once you know who you really are, being is enough. You feel neither superior to anyone nor inferior to anyone and you have no need for approval because you’ve awakened to your own infinite worth.

When you die, you donct go to sleep. You go home to nonphysical reality, and you are very much awake.

Awakening self-compassion is often the greatest challenge people face on the spiritual path.

It’s not about how much you sleep. It’s what you do while you’re awake.

Life is only a dream: soon, we shall awaken. And what joy! The greater our sufferings, the more limitless our glory. Oh! do not let us waste the trial Jesus sends.

Heartbreak does not have to be a meaningless experience. For many, it is a spiritual catalyst – a pathway to awakening to ones deepest desires for love, purpose and connection.

We shall awaken from our dullness and rise vigorously toward justice. If we fall in love with creation deeper and deeper, we will respond to its endangerment with passion.