Reminders for myself

Never be mean to anybody. Every single moment that will ever haunt you is a time you were mean or careless.

The basic insight is that compassion—which combines an awareness of suffering with a desire to alleviate it—can be applied to ourselves, just as it can be applied to people in the outside world. And compassion can be learned.

Sometimes a dream almost whispers. And I've always said to my kids, the hardest thing to listen to—your instincts, your human personal intuition—always whispers; it never shouts. Very hard to hear. So you have to every day of your lives be ready to hear what whispers in your ear; it very rarely shouts. And if you can listen to the whisper, and if... See more

I often feel like I’m accumulating insight when I’m doing, but it doesn’t translate into changes in my action and perception unless I take a pause from doing. When acting on the world, I am like a dam filling with potential energy, but it is only in silence and stillness the dam can open up, and the insights I have accumulated can transform into... See more

I’m sure I’ll continue to cringe at my own writing but I’ll try to follow these three guiding principles: don’t write your feelings, don’t write cliches, and don’t use self-deprecation. Often, vulnerability is just telling the darkest truth, the truth you’re the least inclined to share.

I can hear Jesus saying, “Get your hands dirty to build a human society for human beings.” Christianity is not passive but active, energetic, alive, going beyond despair.