Being

"Practice is not about doing, or "doing it right".  It is about being- and being the knowing, including the knowing of not knowing."

"The soil of practice requires the fertilizer of deep self-acceptance and self-compassion.  Harshness and striving ultimately only engender unawareness and insensitivity, furthering fragmentation just when we have an opportunity to recognize that we are already OK, already whole."

"Gentleness is not a luxury, but a critical requirement for coming to our senses."

"The most important support for mindfulness practice comes from the quality of your motivation.  No amount of outside support can substitute for a quiet but determine passion for living life, every moment of it, as if it really mattered, knowing how easy it is to miss large swaths of it to unconsciousness and automaticity and to our deep conditioning.  That is why it is important to practice as if your life depended on it.  It Does."

"Everything supports wakefulness if you are willing to let yourself be awakened by tenderly yet consistently connecting through your senses.  Everything.  But it requires a brave heart, and mind that sees the folly in clinging to anything."