When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

That awareness is what turns the sword into a flower. It is how what is seemingly ugly and problematic and unwanted actually becomes our teacher.

Sometimes we meet someone who seems to have a great sense of well-being, and we wonder how that person got that way. We would like to be that way. That well-being is often a result of having been brave enough to be fully alive and awake to every moment of life, including all the lack of cheer, all the dark times, all the times when the clouds cover

The word desire encompasses that addiction quality, the way we grab for something because we want to find a way to make things okay. That

What it implies is that pain comes from holding so tightly to having it our own way and that one of the main exits we take when we find ourselves uncomfortable, when we find ourselves in an unwanted situation or an unwanted place, is to blame.

Meditation provides a way for us to train in the middle way—in staying right on the spot. We are encouraged not to judge whatever arises in our mind. In fact, we are encouraged not to even grasp whatever arises in our mind. What we usually call good or bad we simply acknowledge as thinking, without all the usual drama that goes along with right and

When we meditate and when we hear the teachings, it helps to remember that we are engaged in developing kindness. One time when I was teaching in Austin,

We forget what we’ve learned through meditation and know to be true. When really strong emotion comes up, all the doctrines and beliefs that we’ve held on to seem kind of pitiful by comparison, because emotions are so much more powerful.

Often peace is taught as the fourth mark of existence. This isn’t the peace that’s the opposite of war. It’s the well-being that comes when we can see the infinite pairs of opposites as complementary.

If we can look at and see the wildness of emotion, we can not only begin to befriend and soften toward ourselves, but we can also begin to befriend all human beings and indeed all living beings.