The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving Kindness

Someone who is very angry also has a lot of energy; that energy is what’s so juicy about him or her. That’s the reason people love that person. The idea isn’t to try to get rid of your anger, but to make friends with it, to see it clearly with precision and honesty, and also to see it with gentleness. That means not judging yourself as a bad person

Trungpa Rinpoche gave a definition of taking refuge that was pinned up on our bulletin board the other day. It begins with an absolute statement: “Since all things are naked, clear from obscurations, there is nothing to attain or realize.” But then Rinpoche goes further and makes it very practical. “The everyday practice is simply to develop a comp

Resentment, bitterness, and holding a grudge prevent us from seeing and hearing and tasting and delighting.

We can give each other this break by being willing to work with our own fear and our own feelings of inadequacy and our own early-morning depression and all of that.

The point is that our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to. It’s who we are right now, and that’s what we can make friends with and celebrate.

The law of karma says, “Well, how do you want to feel tomorrow, next week, next year, five years from now, ten years from now?” It’s up to you how to use your life. It doesn’t mean that you have to be the best one at cheering up, or that your habitual tendencies never get the better of you. It just has to do with this sense of reminding yourself.

You can let go of the usual pitiful little story line that accompanies anger and begin to see clearly how you keep the whole thing going. So whether it’s anger or craving or jealousy or fear or depression—whatever it might be—the notion is not to try to get rid of it, but to make friends with it. That means getting to know it completely,…

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Since meditation has this quality of bringing you very close to yourself and your experience, you tend to come up against your edge faster.

The essence of the out-breath is the other part of the human condition. With every out-breath, you open. You connect with the feeling of joy, well-being, satisfaction, tenderheartedness, anything that feels fresh and clean, wholesome and good. That’s the aspect of the human condition that we wish were the whole show, the part that, if we could fina