“At every moment in our lives we need compassion, but what more urgent moment could there be than when we are dying?”

All too often people come to meditation in the hope of extraordinary results, like visions, lights, or some supernatural miracle.

The real glory of meditation lies not in any method but in its continual living experience of presence, in its bliss, clarity, peace, and most important of all, complete absence of grasping.

At the moment of death, there are two things that count: whatever we have done in our lives, and what state of mind we are in at that very moment.

When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us.

What more wonderful and consoling gift could you give to dying people than the knowledge that they are being prayed for, and that you are taking on their suffering and purifying their negative karma through your practice for them?

How we live now can cost us our entire future.

When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don’t actually “become” a buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being.

The act of meditation is being spacious.

Theories are like patches on a coat, one day they just wear off.

Why exactly are we so frightened of death that we avoid looking at it altogether? Somewhere, deep down, we know we cannot avoid facing death forever.

Switch on the television or glance at the newspaper: You will see death everywhere. Yet, did the victims of those plane crashes and car accidents expect to die? They took life for granted, as we do.

In meditation take care not to impose anything on the mind, or to tax it. When you meditate there should be no effort to control, and no attempt to be peaceful.

We may idealize freedom, but when it comes to our habits, we are completely enslaved.

And in the all-revealing clarity of its sunlight, this insight can show you, distinctly and directly, both the subtlest workings of your own mind and the nature of reality.

Let your heart go out in spontaneous and immeasurable compassion.

The key to finding a happy balance in modern lives is simplicity.