“By regarding ourselves with kindness, we begin to dissolve the identity of an isolated, deficient self. This creates the grounds for including others in an unconditionally loving heart.”

Whatever you encounter, may that be part of the path.

People don’t behave in angry ways unless they are feeling stressed and conflicted too.

The most powerful healing arises from the simple intention to love the life within you, unconditionally, with as much tenderness and presence as possible.

Observing desire without acting on it enlarges our freedom to choose how we live.

If our hearts are ready for anything, we are touched by the beauty and poetry and mystery that fill our world.

There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.

Self-judgment continues to arise – it’s a strong habit – but the fact that I made a conscious commitment to recognize it has helped me stop feeding the story of being unworthy.

The trance of unworthiness keeps the sweetness of belonging out of reach. The path to “the sweetness of belonging,” is acceptance – acceptance of ourselves and acceptance of others without judgment.

But this revolutionary act of treating ourselves tenderly can begin to undo the aversive messages of a lifetime.

With mindfulness training we are able to recognize when we get lost in our mental dramas, and bring a kind and nonreactive presence to the feelings that accompany them.

Extend an act of kindness each day. No one has to know. It can be a smile, reassuring words, a small favor – without expecting something in return.

On this sacred path of Radical Acceptance, rather than striving for perfection, we discover how to love ourselves into wholeness.

When we open to love, we become love.

Fear of being a flawed person lay at the root of my trance, and I had sacrificed many moments over the years in trying to prove my worth. Like the tiger Mohini, I inhabited a self-made prison that stopped me from living fully.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns.

In a basic way, acceptance is seeing clearly what’s happening and holding it with kindness. This is a radical antidote to the suffering of judging mind.

I began to understand that his version of hope reached far beyond mine: It was one thing to get yourself out of a stick place, I realized. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.

An idea is inevitably a coordination. It is a coming together of something that is separate or disorganized or incomplete. With an idea you begin to feel into the nature of that incompleteness.

The complexity of immigration as an issue begins with a basic human trait: we are reluctant to share.

In the beginning, I took on every opportunity because I was so determined to get my name and music out there. You can get your sleep, but honestly, your brain needs a break, too, and so many people forget that.

Repeat a lie often enough and it begins to sound as if it must—or at least might—be so.

Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that’s all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition.

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.

I began to understand that his version of hope reached far beyond mine: It was one thing to get yourself out of a stuck place, I realized. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.