A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life

As I had come to reinhabit my emotions more fully, I noticed that my body also required its own loving attention and that it was not enough to see and understand or even to feel with love and compassion—I had to move further down the chakras. I learned that if I am to live a spiritual life, I must be able to embody it in every action: in the way I

How we live is our spiritual life. As one wise student remarked, “If you really want to know about a Zen master, talk to their spouse.”

idealistic and romantic. People tried to use spirituality to “get high” and to experience extraordinary states of consciousness.

Intimacy can arise in any moment; it is an act of surrender, a gift that excludes nothing.

It is an easiness of heart that understands that all of the spiritual vehicles are rafts to cross the stream to freedom.

There is an awakening in the midst of all things, a love that can touch and include all things, a freedom and fearlessness that can enter every realm. In this we do not remove ourselves from life but rest in the very center of it. In this we are able to be intimate with all things.

the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment. Here around us always is the mystery.

MEDITATION ON EQUANIMITY Equanimity is a wonderful quality, a spaciousness and balance of heart. Although it grows naturally with our meditation practice, equanimity can also be cultivated in the same systematic way that we have used for loving-kindness and compassion. We can feel this possibility of balance in our hearts in the midst of all life w

people tried to escape their ordinary lives and become more spiritual beings.