When we stop distancing ourselves from the pain in the world, our own or others, we create the possibility of a new experience, one that often surprises because of how much joy, connection, or relief it yields. Destruction may continue, but humanity ...
Awakening does not mean a change in difficulty, it means a change in how those difficulties are met.
[The Buddha] is not dividing himself into worthy and unworthy pieces; he is one being, indivisible, immune from the tendency to double back and beat up on himself. He has seen the worst in himself and not been taken down.
The picture we present to ourselves of who we think we ought to be obscures who we really are.
To be free, to come to terms with our lives, we have to have a direct experience of ourselves as we really are, warts and all.
