It is a mark of soulfulness to be present in the here and now. When we are present, we are not fabricating inner movies. We are seeing what is before us.
Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment.
Condemning others as bad or sinful is a way to feel righteous. Such a feeling is a powerful mood alteration and can become highly addictive.
I have never met an aggressive person who wasn’t a fearful person.
Since the earliest period of our life was preverbal, everything depended on emotional interaction. Without someone to reflect our emotions, we had no way of knowing who we were.
Children aren’t fooled. They know we give time to the things we love.
I define a good person as somebody who is fully conscious of their own limitations. They know their strengths, but they also know their shadow – they know their weaknesses. In other words, they understand that there is no good without bad. Good and evil are really one, but we have broken them up in our consciousness. We polarize them.
The most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic.
Emerging From The Dark Night 