Death in everyday life could also be defined as experiencing all the things that we don’t want. Our marriage isn’t working; our job isn’t coming toge… - Pema Chödrön

You come back to that breath over and over, through boredom, edginess, fear, and well-being. This perseverance and repetition — when done with honesty, a light touch, humor, and kindness — is its own reward.

I’d like to encourage us all to lighten up, to practice with a lot of gentleness. This is not the drill sergeant saying, “Lighten up or else.” I have found that if we can possibly use anything we hear against ourselves, we usually do.

People find it quite easy to have beliefs and to hold on to them and to let their whole world be a product of their belief system. They also find it quite easy to attack those who disagree. The harder, more courageous thing, which the hero and the heroine, the warrior, and the mystic do, is continually to look one’s beliefs straight in the face, honestly and clearly, and then step beyond them. That requires a lot of heart and kindness. It requires being able to touch and know completely, to the core, your own experience, without harshness, without making any judgment.