September always feels like a new beginning, a slightly larger and grander new beginning than the one I experience each time I sit on my meditation cushion. But that’s just my history. I now take each day, no matter the season, as a new beginning. Just back from a month in the Vermont countryside, I sit today with the rhythm of the city as the backdrop and enjoy that beat. No matter where my body rests, there I am.

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Meditation is one of the most serious things. You can do it all day, in the office, with the family, when you say to somebody, “I love you,” when you are considering your children…. Meditation is part of life, not something different from life.
J. Krishnamurti

If we are not in control of ourselves but instead let our impatience or anger interfere, then our work is no longer of any value. Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves.
Thich Nhat Hahn

You should rather be grateful for the weeds you have in your mind, because eventually they will enrich your practice.
Shunryu Suzuki

Some say that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has roots that go deep.

I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
Lao Tzu