There's a bright light of awareness that shines through each of us and guides us home, and we're never separated from this luminous awareness, any more than waves are separated from the ocean.

One of the great teachings in spiritual life is this: It doesn't matter what is happening. What matters is how we respond. How we respond is what determines our happiness and peace of mind.

"The intention is to feel compassion toward yourself so there's less identification with the self that is disgusted with looking bad and more of an inhabiting of the awareness that is observing with kindness."

Tara Brach embodies and emphasizes that beneath the turbulence of our minds and hearts is a loving awareness that as we learn to tap into over and again can reveal a source of resiliency, peace and genuine happiness.

This fall, InsightLA celebrates its 10th anniversary -- a decade during which Trudy and an ever-growing band of colleagues have helped change the lives of thousands of Angelenos.

Integrating Buddhist practices with western psychology is vital, Jack Kornfield says, because the latter is traditionally pathology-oriented whereas Buddhism offers a positive, wellness-oriented science of the mind.