Ultimately ... it's not the stories that determine our choices, but the stories that we continue to choose.

Mindfulness meditation doesn't change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is.

Surrender means wisely accommodating ourselves to what is beyond our control.

The mind is like tofu. It tastes like whatever you marinate it in.

Spirituality doesn't look like sitting down and meditating. Spirituality looks like folding the towels in a sweet way and talking kindly to the people in the family eve though you've had a rough day.

Life is painful, suffering is optional.

May I meet each moment fully and meet it as a friend.

If we can keep at least a bit of the mind clear about temporality, we can mange complicated, even difficult, times with grace.

Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience. It isn't more complicated than that.

People are realizing that what seemed important to them in their lives-materialism and consumerism-doesn't work at all to make a happy heart. It actually makes an unhappy heart. And an unhappy world.

When the mind is clear, behavior is always impeccable.

A world without pain, loss, betrayal, hate, death, loneliness? Impossible!

Mothers are the ultimate executives. Instead of raising profits they are raising humanity.

The game isn't big enough unless it scares you a little. Cmdr. William Riker

Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking.

The past was just a place where uncontrolled freaks you had never consciously decided to include in your life entered it anyway and staggered around, breaking things.

The American flag is the symbol of our freedom, national pride and history.

If we were to remove the Bible from public schools we would be wasting so much time punishing crimes and taking so little pains to prevent them.

We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies.

A sudden happiness catches me unawares. I feel it trickling into me, and my eyes go liquid with gratitude and hope.

Remain grateful for every outcome. Every outcome. Gratitude is the connecting energy to God.