There is the experience of physical pain, and there is the separate experience of aversion. The untrained mind lumps them into one indivisible experience, but the trained mind sees two distinct experiences, one leading to the arising of the other.

Your breath is like New York City for your attention—if your attention can make it here, it can make it anywhere.

wilting flowers do not cause suffering; it is the unrealistic desire that flowers not wilt that causes suffering.

For example, I was told that in Buddhist psychology, there is an important difference between anger and indignation: anger arises out of powerlessness, while indignation arises out of power.

As we deepen our self-awareness, we eventually arrive at a very important key insight: we are not our emotions.

The happiest state can only be achieved with compassion, which requires engagement in real life with real people. Hence, our meditation practices cannot be perfected outside of real life; there has to be a combination of seclusion from the world (to deepen the calmness) and engagement with the world (to deepen the compassion). If you are a deep

The experience itself causes no suffering, but our clinging on to them and our desperate hoping that they do not go away cause suffering.

One small shift in the way we each conduct ourselves, and the crystal lattice structure of the world is already different.

Failure is the building block of success.