Sharon Salzberg

If we harm someone else, we__e inevitably also hurting ourselves. Some quality of sensitivity and awareness has to shut down for us to be able to objectify someone else, to deny them as a living, feeling being__omeone who wants to be happy, just as we do.

When we feel conflicted about a particular decision or action, our bodies often hold the answer__f we take the time to stop and tune in.

if we really look at our actions with eyes of love, we see that our lives can be more straightforward, simpler, less sculpted by regret and fear, more in alignment with our deepest values.

Effort is the unconstrained willingness to persevere through difficulty.

With attachment all that seems to exist is just me & that object I desire.

Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be. We do not need to fear anything. We are whole: our deepest happiness is intrinsic to the nature of our minds, and it is not damaged through uncertainty and change.

Let the breath lead the way.

Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves. We can open to everything with the healing force of love. When we feel love, our mind is expansive and open enough to include the entirety of life in full awareness, both its pleasures and its pains, we feel neither betrayed by pain or overcome by it, and thus we can contact that which is undamaged within us regardless of the situation. Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be.

With the practice of meditation we can develop this ability to more fully love ourselves and to more consistently love others.

Buddha _st taught metta meditation as an antidote: as a way of surmounting terrible fear when it arises.

Meditation may be done in silence & stillness, by using voice & sound, or by engaging the body in movement. All forms emphasize the training of attention.

Meditation is a microcosm, a model, a mirror. The skills we practice when we sit are transferable to the rest of our lives.

For all of us, love can be the natural state of our own being; naturally at peace, naturally connected, because this becomes the reflection of who we simply are.

To relinquish the futile effort to control change is one of the strengthening forces of true detachment & thus true love.

Restore your attention or bring it to a new level by dramatically slowing down whatever you're doing.

Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.

We use mindfulness to observe the way we cling to pleasant experiences & push away unpleasant ones.

If you__e reading these words, perhaps it__ because something has kicked open the door for you, and you__e ready to embrace change. It isn__ enough to appreciate change from afar, or only in the abstract, or as something that can happen to other people but not to you. We need to create change for ourselves, in a workable way, as part of our everyday lives.