The problem with certainty is that it is static; it can do little but endlessly reassert itself. Uncertainty, by contrast, is full of unknowns, possibilities, and risks.

The origin of the conflict, frustration, and anxiety we experience does not lie in the nature of the world itself but in our distorted conceptions of the world.

Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition to modernity.

Consciousness is an emergent, contingent, and impermanent phenomenon. It has no magical capacity to break free from the field of events out of which it springs.

While 'Buddhism' suggests another belief system, 'dharma practice' suggests a course of action. The four ennobling truths are not propositions to believe; they are challenges to act.

What is it that makes a person insist passionately on the existence of metaphysical realities that can be neither demonstrated nor refuted? (176)

In taking life for granted, we fail to notice it.

The greatest threat to compassion is the temptation to succumb to fantasies of moral superiority.

To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is the ground for unsentimental compassion and love.

This body is fragile. It is just flesh. Listen to the heartbeat. Life depends on the pumping of a muscle.

We cannot choose whether to engage with the world, only how to.

Patience s bitter, but it's fruit is sweet.

Man's real home is not a house, but the Road, and that life itself is a journey to be walked on foot.

My first husband was a serial cheater.

The main subject in the Bible from the beginning of Genesis through Revelation is none other than Jesus.

I've protected my protracted period of infancy. For many years. And I have no desire to become an adult.

I think the brutality is important to convey as part of the story, to see how brutal it is to have these kids in battle with one another.

Whenever I read statistical reports, I try to imagine my unfortunate contemporary, the Average Person, who, according to these reports, has 0.66 children, 0.032 cars, and 0.046 TVs.

When I look up to the sky between the narrow roofs, it reminds me of you, the one who is far, far away.

Thinking is a physical process, the human brain is not exempt from evolution

I am one who tells the truth and exposes evil and seeks with Beauty for Beauty to set the world right.