Living from our deepest understanding requires an enormous effort, especially when it goes against the stream of our instinctually programmed perceptions of the world.

The origin of the conflict, frustration, and anxiety we experience does not lie in the nature of the world itself but in our distorted conceptions of the world.

Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition to modernity.

Consciousness is an emergent, contingent, and impermanent phenomenon. It has no magical capacity to break free from the field of events out of which it springs.

While 'Buddhism' suggests another belief system, 'dharma practice' suggests a course of action. The four ennobling truths are not propositions to believe; they are challenges to act.

What is it that makes a person insist passionately on the existence of metaphysical realities that can be neither demonstrated nor refuted? (176)

In taking life for granted, we fail to notice it.

The problem with certainty is that it is static; it can do little but endlessly reassert itself. Uncertainty, by contrast, is full of unknowns, possibilities, and risks.

The greatest threat to compassion is the temptation to succumb to fantasies of moral superiority.

To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is the ground for unsentimental compassion and love.

This body is fragile. It is just flesh. Listen to the heartbeat. Life depends on the pumping of a muscle.

I don't judge people. I don't even judge people on 'The Voice.' I'm a coach. I'm there for constructive criticism and to aid and abet and discover new talent.

I've been a performer for a long time and I know when people are laughing from their guts, from the inside, and when their tuxedos are laughing.

There is no death. How can there be death if everything is part of the Godhead? The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.

If you want to attract people, you need to be like people you enjoy being with.

You are really starting to annoy me, Stanton.” Nick didn’t blink. “Good. By the end of the night I hope to finish the job.

One incredible tool to accomplish bringing a product to the public is to put a face on TV shows, movies, and the actors in them by using good PR.

I can be out auditioning but a lot of times it's word of mouth more than anything - having worked on other projects with people who might see you and recommend for other projects and vice versa.

Words are never 'only words'; they matter because they define the contours of what we can do.

I'd be a sucker for a guy who wrote me a song,” I said. “Like Beth or Rosanna or Sara. Or Sharona. Is that too much to ask? To be somebody's Sharona?

Look for your brushes with the divine. Be receptive to them. When heaven knocks, open the door. Value these visits. Remember them. Expect more of them.