We're constantly waking up to what we're about, what we're really doing in our lives. And the fact is, that's painful. But there's no possibility of freedom without this pain.

We have to face the pain we have been running from. In fact, we need to learn to rest in it and let its searing power transform us.

Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that.

Meditation practice is simply moving from a life of hurting myself and others to a life of not hurting myself and others.

But opinions, judgments, memories, dreaming about the future—ninety percent of the thoughts spinning around in our heads have no essential reality.

With unfailing kindness, your life always presents what you need to learn. Whether you stay home or work in an office or whatever, the next teacher is going to pop right up.

All I can be is who I am right now; I can experience that and work with it. That's all I can do. The rest is the dream of the ego.

It's of no use to look back and say, "I should have been different." At any given moment, we are the way we are, and we see what we're able to see. For that reason, guilt is always inappropriate.

Joy is being willing for things to be as they are.

There is one thing in life that you can always rely on: life being as it is.

Practice has to be a process of endless disappointment. We have to see that everything we demand (and even get) eventually disappoints us. This discovery is our teacher.

You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!

I never realized how much you meant to me until someone spoke your name and an irrepressible, goofy grin stretched my lips.

Our perception of space-time can be thought of in terms of event coordinates relative to our current state of consciousness.

Life is too precious and short to dare to waste it on mediocre dreams.

It's not so much knowing when to speak, when to pause.

Human connections are deeply nurtured in the field of shared story.

Energy and art go where they will.

I'm not the healthiest eater, but I try to watch what I eat during the week. I kind of splurge on the weekends and eat french fries and pizza.

Part of the transaction between writer and reader is the pleasure of building a community and encouraging people to play along.

When man meets an obstacle he can't destroy, he destroys himself.