Now we see all this clearly, but years ago we would have taken this experience of being riven with anxiety and riveted to our inner videos as constituting who we are, and we would have grasped at joy in order to avoid pain and anguish. But now we see that this no longer holds identity, and in the face of the same anxieties and videos there is a dee

3 If we can name the thought (anger, fear, pride, etc.) instead of spinning a commentary about the thought, which is our usual response, we stand a much better chance of simply letting go of the thought and returning to our practice.

Divine love is forgiving love. Sorrow must be allowed to blossom into self-forgetful love of God.

People who have traveled far along the contemplative path are often aware that the sense of separation from God is itself pasted up out of a mass of thoughts and feelings. When the mind comes into its own stillness and enters the silent land, the sense of separation goes. Union is seen to be the fundamental reality and separateness a highly filtere

For when the mind is brought to stillness, and all our strategies of acquisition have dropped, a deeper truth presents itself: we are and have always been one with God and we are all one in God (Jn 17:21).

this ineffable reality that the word “silence” points to is not something that we need to acquire, like a piece of software we can install in the computer of our spiritual lives. It is pointing to something that is already within us, grounding all mental processes, whether precise, disciplined thinking or chaotic mental obsession.

Trial, temptation, and struggle are the making of the contemplative. Take away these and you take away tremendous opportunity for growth, depth, and wisdom.

takes less than a minute of attempting to practice inner stillness to realize that however fidgety the body may be the real obstacle to inner silence is the mind.

When the mind is brought to stillness we see that we are the mountain and not the changing patterns of weather appearing on the mountain.