Expansion and contraction are the way of things. There is a reason why the universe is not in conflict. It stays in perfect balance. There is a place in our lives where we are not going to grow any more. We stop taking out and we give back. If you don’t breathe out when you are meant to, you hold a tremendous amount of conflict and tension within you. Wanting more is the cause of suffering. Now is the time to find a blissful way to breathe out.

How you reacted to what you have done throughout your life is karma. It is what prompts you to react. What happens to you has the potential not to your undoing but your teacher. One of the most valuable things you can get from your meditation practice is the attitude that what I am facing “it is what it is” and you can walk without fear of how things are going to turn out.

You can’t understand a computer by looking at it structurally. Rather, it’s the software side which allows you to understand what it does. It’s the same for a human being. We have come to such a materialistic perspective of life that we try to understand consciousness at the mechanical, physical and biological level. In order to understand life fully, we have to look at the software side or what the Buddha called “the fine material sphere.”