Seen in this way, suffering is always, always a signpost pointing back to wholeness.

It is crucial to understand this: our search for something abstract in the future—enlightenment, wealth, power, success, love—is always deeply rooted in present-moment resistance. Our search for future completeness is always rooted in an experience of present incompleteness. Present-moment incompleteness is where all our suffering and seeking begin

let’s just say that from a place of deep acceptance of the way things are, in seeing the inherent perfection of life itself, one is still totally free to do what one is moved to do—to help, to change things, to make a difference. It’s just that our actions are no longer coming from the root assumption that reality is broken and needs to be fixed an

We imagine that there is a solid and separate me—a separate entity here at the center of life, an entity that is in charge of life—but upon investigation, that assumption crumbles. The illusion is seen through: what I really am is intimate with life itself. It’s not that the wave doesn’t exist—it’s that the wave is inseparable from the ocean.

Here’s something that’s crucial to understand: In reality, feelings have no opposite. Energy in the body has no opposite. Life itself has no opposite.

As human beings, we do very complicated, dangerous, and even violent things to escape the discomfort of present experience. But what is happening underneath is always very simple: we are resisting what is.

let’s simply note that in every experience of suffering, when you take the focus off the details of the situation, off the story of what’s happening, off the external circumstances, and really come back to your present experience—to present thoughts, feelings, and sensations in the body—you will always find seeking, even if that seeking is playing

We are at war with the opposites; we reject any opposite that doesn’t match our image of ourselves, and we don’t realize something very important: in reality, there are no opposites. Opposites are a creation of the mind.

My rejection of pain was disguised as acceptance! What an ingenious place for the seeker to hide—right at the heart of a beautiful spiritual practice! Accepting done with any kind of hope, motive, or expectation is not real acceptance—it is rejection in disguise.