“We are motivated more by aversion to the unpleasant than by a will toward truth, freedom, or healing. We are constantly attempting to escape our life, to avoid rather than enter our pain we, and we wonder why it is so difficult to be fully alive. (43)”

“Quoting son, Noah Levine: Once you see what the heart really needs, it doesn’t matter if you’re going to live or die, the work is always the same. (25)”

“Go to the truth beyond the mind. Love is the bridge.”

“Love is not what we become but who we already are.”

“Meditation is for many a foreign concept, somehow distant and foreboding, seemingly impossible to participate in. But another word for meditation is simply awareness. Meditation is awareness.”

“Often when we hear people speak about meditation, we hear about wisdom, we hear about knowledge. But what, actually, is the effect, what’s the use, of wisdom or knowledge? Understanding. When you understand mind, you’re not at its mercy. When you don’t understand, you’re lost in the midst of it.”

“[D]etachment means letting go and nonattachment means simply letting be. (95)”

“Simply touching a difficult memory with some slight willingness to heal begins to soften the holding and tension around it. (74)”

“Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult healings we will undertake. And one of the most fruitful. (79)”

“[D]on’t cling to your self-righteous suffering, let it go. . . . Nothing is too good to be true, let yourself be forgiven. To the degree you insist that you must suffer, you insist on the suffering of others as well. (90)”

“Until we find out who was born this time around, it seems irrelevant to seek earlier identities. I have heard many people speak of who they believe they were in previous incarnations, but they seem to have very little idea of who they are in this one. . . . Let’s take one life at a time. Perhaps the best way to do that is to live as though there were no afterlife or reincarnation. To live as though this moment was all that was allotted. (132)”