Cultivate the good. Cultivating the good means uncovering, recovering the wisdom and compassion that are present as potential in all of us.

This means that we begin to align our intentions, actions, and mind-states with a vision of the awakened heart—with what the Mahayana Buddhists refer to as our “Buddha nature”— that is, the innate potential for awakening. There is a natural awakened aspect of the heart that is within all of us, though obscured. The good news is that it can be unobscured. How?

By walking the path. By putting into practice the values and theories that the Buddha taught and exemplified. By making the effort to abandon the unskillful and cultivate the good—and not just on the meditation mat but in all aspects of our lives. We begin with the intentional aspect of meditation, the formal sitting practice, but then we expand our intentionality to all aspects of our life, including the workplace and (perhaps the hardest and most important practice) our relationships.