"With a clear intention and a willing spirit, sooner or later we experience the joy and freedom that arises when we recognize our common humanity with others and see that real love excludes no one."

"Mindfulness can play a big role in transforming our experience with pain & other difficulties, it allows us to recognize the authenticity of the distress & yet not be overwhelmed by it."

"If we truly loved ourselves, we'd never harm another. That is a truly revolutionary, celebratory mode of self-care."

"The practice of sympathetic joy is rooted in inner development. It's not a matter of learning techniques to "make friends and influence people. Instead, we build the foundations of our own happiness. When our own cup is full, we more easily share it with others."

"When we contemplate the miracle of embodied life, we begin to partner with our bodies in a kinder way."

"From the Buddhist point of view, it is true that emptiness is a characteristic of all of life - if we look carefully at any experience we will find transparency, insubstantiality, with no solid, unchanging core to our experience. But that does not mean that nothing matters."

"When we bring deep awareness to whatever's bothering us, the same things might be happening, but we are able to relate to them differently."

"Our path, our sense of spirituality demands great earnestness, dedication, sincerity & continuity."

"When we constantly hear that we should be smarter, better connected, more productive, wealthier-it takes real courage to claim the time and space to follow the currents of our talents, our aspirations, and our hearts, which may lead in a very different direction."

"When we believe a wounding story, our whole world is diminished."

"Maybe what we really need is to change our relationship to what is, to see who we are with the strength of a generous spirit & a wise heart."

"Cultivating loving kindness for ourselves is the foundation of real love for our friends and family, for new people we encounter in our daily lives, for all beings and for life itself."

"When we pay attention to sensations in our bodies, we can feel that love is the energetic opposite of fear."

"To truly love ourselves, we must challenge our beliefs that we need to be different or better."

"Mindfulness, also called wise attention, helps us see what we're adding to our experiences, not only during meditation sessions but also elsewhere."

"Real Love may run on a lower voltage, but it's also more grounded & sustainable."

"Forgiveness is the way we break the grip that long-held resentments have on our hearts."

"Dedicating some time to meditation is a meaningful expression of caring for yourself that can help you move through the mire of feeling unworthy of recovery. As your mind grows quieter and more spacious, you can begin to see self-defeating thought patterns for what they are, and open up to other, more positive options."

"As a friend of mine told me about Real Happiness: you wrote this one in American."

"When we relate to ourselves with loving kindness, perfectionism naturally drops away."

"If we have nothing material to give, we can offer our attention, our energy, our appreciation. The world needs us. It doesn't deplete us to give."

"The key in letting go is practice. Each time we let go, we disentangle ourselves from our expectations and begin to experience things as they are."

"If you go deeper and deeper into your own heart, you'll be living in a world with less fear, isolation and loneliness."

"Once someone appears to us primarily as an object, kindness has no place to root."

"People turn to meditation because they want to make good decisions, break bad habits & bounce back better from disappointments."

"Compassion is born out of lovingkindness.It is born of knowing our oneness, not just thinking about it or wishing it were so. It is born out of the wisdom of seeing things exactly as they are."

"When we are willing to explore our own experiences, we open the doorway to deeper connection and intimacy."

"Just as a prism refracts light differently when you change its angle, each experience of love illuminates love in new ways, drawing from an infinite palette of patterns and hues."

"Wherever the responsibility lies, shame creates a solid and terrible feeling of unworthiness that resides in our bodies: the storehouse of the memories of our acts, real or imagined, and the secrets we keep about them."

"In order to do anything about the suffering of the world we must have the strength to face it without turning away."

"You are a person worthy of love. You don't have to do anything to prove that."

"Forgiveness is a process, an admittedly difficult one that often can feel like a rigorous spiritual practice."

"Instead of catching ourselves after we first felt angry, we develop a visceral sensitivity to what's happening within us in the moment & through mindfulness, we can shape our reaction right away."

"Our minds tend to race ahead into the future or replay the past, but our bodies are always in the present moment."

"Protection, as we use the word in Buddhism, is actually wisdom, it's insight. Protection is seeing and knowing deeply that all things in our experience arise due to causes, due to conditions coming together in a certain way."

"The embodiment of kindness is often made difficult by our long ingrained patternsof fear & jealousy."

"To forgive, we may need to open our minds to a fuller exploration of the context in which the events occurred, and feel compassion for the circumstances and everyone involved, starting with ourselves."

"We have to know ourselves to know where we end and another person begins, and we have to develop the skills to navigate the space between us. Or else we will seek wholeness through false means that honor neither us nor those we love."

"As we hone the ability to let go of distraction, to begin again without rancor or judgment, we are deepening forgiveness and compassion for ourselves. And in life, we find we might make a mistake, and more easily begin again, or stray from our chosen course and begin again."

"The unconscious mind is a vast repository of experiences and associations that sorts things out much faster than the slow-moving conscious mind."

"When we develop our ability to love in one realm, we simultaneously nourish our ability in others, as long as we remain open to the flow of insight and compassion."

"Letting go is an inside job, something only we can do for ourselves."

"When we learn to respond to disappointments with acceptance, we give ourselves the space to realize that all our experiences-good and bad alike-are opportunities to learn and grow."

"Ultimately, we forgive others in order to free ourselves."

"I believe that there is only one kind of love-real love-trying to come alive in us despite our limiting assumptions, the distortions of our culture, and the habits of fear, self-condemnation, and isolation that we tend to acquire just by living a life."

"Even as we live with the knowledge that each day might be our last, we don't want to believe it."

"Mindfulness won't ensure you'll win an argument with your sister. Mindfulness won't enable you to bypass your feelings of anger or hurt either. But it may help you see the conflict in a new way, one that allows you to break through old patterns."

"Real love allows for failure and suffering."

"A relationship is the union of two psychological systems."

"Although much of the work we do in committed relationships we do with our partners, sometimes it's necessary to start with ourselves."