It is tempting to undertake a meditation practice or path of development with the same kind of clinging motivation with which we might have undertaken anything else. Perhaps we feel empty inside, we feel bereft in some ways, we feel we are not good enough, and so we undertake spiritual practice to try to ameliorate all of that. But evolving a spiritual practice is not about having and getting; it is about being more and more compassionate toward ourselves and toward others. It is not about assuming a new self-image or manufactured persona; it is about being compassionate naturally, out of what we see, out of what we understand. Compassion is like a mirror into which we can always look. It is like a stream that steadily carries us. It is like a cleansing fire that continually transforms us. ~ Sharon Salzberg