Daily Dharma

Attention is the start of love.

When we let ourselves hang out in the space of not-knowing, there is enormous potential, and life could unfold in innumerable ways.

Underneath all the drama, the restlessness, the hopes and fears, behind the narratives we weave about ourselves, and even before we’ve thought of ourselves as ourselves, lies a simple, unadorned awareness.

To love is the most meritorious action.

Faith is the ultimate subject, the true self. Therefore, when we distance ourselves from the one moment of faith, we are already far from the Tathagata, away from the self, and are living in a sky of illusory dreams.

You do not need to have any special experience to be free. You just need to relate 100 percent fully with whatever you’re experiencing—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

As we transform our own experience and relationship to our realities, we cannot help but affect those around us in radiating circles into the larger culture. These moments of freedom and transformation begin to change and elevate the consciousness and awareness of the world.

What does it mean, in the light of karma, to wish for people to be happy? It means you wish that they would create good karma, that they would be skillful.

It’s a relief to know that pain comes with life so that we can stop judging ourselves when it arises.

For a Buddhist, the question isn’t whether we have free will or not; it is how we cultivate the causes of freedom instead of the causes of imprisonment. This is the sole purpose of the Buddhist teachings.