Trungpa was telling me to trust what I already knew, to dignify the longings of the human heart, and to respect its romantic, quixotic nature. He was saying that life as a human being here on Earth could not be sanitized, rationalized, or tranquilized into a rigid vision of the way it’s “supposed to be.” Life would always be quirky, dynamic, changi

We learn to trust our capacity to experience difficult states in a fearless way. The poet Hafiz writes, Don’t surrender your loneliness So quickly. Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you As few human Or even divine ingredients can.