Compassion is essentially the recognition that everyone and everything is a reflection of everyone and everything else.

There’s also a short, two-point meditation posture, which can be adopted at times when it may be inconvenient or impossible to settle fully into the more formal seven-point posture. The instructions are very simple: Just keep your spine straight and the rest of your body as loose and relaxed as possible.

I’ve been as guilty of this belief as anyone else, and, as a result, have allowed myself to become isolated, trapped in a dualistic mode of thinking, pitting my weak, vulnerable, and fearful self against everyone else in the world, whom I thought of as much more powerful, happy, and secure.

We become more willing to let go of the desire to control or block our thoughts, emotions, sensations, and so on and begin to experience them without pain or guilt, absorbing their passage simply as manifestations of a universe of infinite possibilities.

From a Buddhist perspective, loving-kindness is the aspiration that all other sentient beings—even those we dislike—experience the same sense of joy and freedom that we ourselves aspire to feel: a recognition that we all experience the same kinds of wants and needs; the desire to go about our lives peacefully and without fear of pain or harm. Even

Whatever satisfaction we might experience when we attain something or someone we desire doesn’t last. Whatever or whoever made us happy today, this month, or this year is bound to change. Change is the only constant of relative reality.

Positive emotions—such as love, compassion, friendship, and loyalty—strengthen the mind, build our confidence, and enhance our ability to assist those in need of help.

When thoughts arise, instead of regarding them as faults, recognize them to be empty and leave them just as they are.

Gradually I began to recognize how feeble and transitory the thoughts and emotions that had troubled me for years actually were, and how fixating on small problems had turned them into big ones.