Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening

That is the basic meaning of the word dharma—the teachings that can guide us.

Support after all is a form of love.

And the first of its directives is to have a clear understanding of suffering and its causes, and of well-being and its causes. This means you have to have a reliable map.

the “Four Ennobling Truths” of Buddhism: There is suffering. Suffering is generated by craving. Craving can cease. There is a path of practice that leads to the end of craving.

The great purpose of human beings may be just to experience love—and then act accordingly, to spread that love the best we can.

What is it that most lights you up, that you would be most happy to have given your vital energies to, before you die? As Cat Stevens asks, “What will you leave us this time?”

And it serves as a reminder for course correction. Whatever we may engage in, we can assess whether it’s worthwhile by checking this: does it help in the overarching project of liberation for all?

materialism, in which we inadvertently think of practice as a means to “get” certain kinds of experience—at

The Tibetan master Milarepa said this: In the beginning nothing comes, in the middle nothing stays, in the end nothing goes.