Falling into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering

None of our stories, even our most intelligent stories, are ever as real as what is.

combination of feeling and thought that had locked the story in his system, and when he could actually let both out, including the intellectual or thought-based part of the story, the emotion lifted, all by itself.

I was speaking with a woman who told me a story about her childhood, and she said, “My mother should have been more kind to me.” I asked her, “Is that really true?” She looked at me like I was crazy! She said, “Of course it’s really true! Parents should treat their children kindly. Everybody knows that!”

If you really want to become quiet and still, simply allow yourself to see that all of the thoughts in your head are just stories. They’re not good or bad stories. They’re not right or wrong. Our mind is a storyteller—and it keeps us removed from the silence, the quiet, that is always present. Often, our minds are really good storytellers—and other

Getting close simply means you stop running away. You don’t have to run toward it. You just have to stop running away. Then you’ll feel an intimacy. You may also feel a resistance, but you can choose to stay right there.

What is the me that has no difficulty, even when I’m having difficulty?”

It is when you listen in this way that you can see that it is only your mind that has the capacity to make you suffer. Only your mind has the capacity to convince you to struggle. Only your mind, nothing else.

I was contemplating my spiritual life, and I suddenly had the impulse to pray. At that time, praying wasn’t something that I did very often, but somehow, I felt this impulse. I said to the universe, “Give me whatever is necessary for me to awaken. I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care if the rest of my life is one of ease, and I don’t care if th

There’s a wonderful quote from the Gospel of Thomas in which Jesus says, “Blessed is he who existed before being born.” Jesus is pointing here to being itself; he is acknowledging that essence of who and what we are before our minds created an image of ourselves as something separate and distinct from all of life.