“the unbearable embeddedness of

“The core of the dream is not the manifest content but the emotional experience.”

In so doing, the Buddha’s mother acted out an inadequacy that many a mother—like many a lover—is vulnerable to, an inadequacy fed by thoughts of doubt and fear that erode confidence and corrode connection.

Especially in situations in which unbearable emotions are stirred up, the self’s only choice is to wall itself off from whatever is threatening it, to remove itself from what it cannot regulate.

Before saying a word, he motioned to a glass at his side. “Do you see this glass?” he asked us. “I love this glass. It holds the water admirably. When the sun shines on it, it reflects the light beautifully. When I tap it, it has a lovely ring. Yet for me, this glass is already broken. When the wind knocks it over or my elbow knocks it off the shel

The effort required to ward off the possibility of trauma—the rush to normal that the absolutisms of daily life encourages—is itself traumatic.

Nothing exists in its own right or under its own power.

The mind that knows knows itself knowing.

“a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream,”