I decided to write 'True Refuge' during a major dive in my own health. Diagnosed with a genetic disease that affected my mobility, I faced tremendous fear and grief about losing the fitness and physical freedom I loved.

Buddhist practices offer a way of saying, 'Hey, come back over here, reconnect.' The only way that you'll actually wake up and have some freedom is if you have the capacity and courage to stay with the vulnerability and the discomfort.

My prayer became 'May I find peace... May I love this life no matter what.' I was seeking an inner refuge, an experience of presence and wholeness that could carry me through whatever losses might come.

True refuge is that which allows us to be at home, at peace, to discover true happiness. The only thing that can give us true refuge is the awareness and love that is intrinsic to who we are. Ultimately, it's our own true nature.

If our hearts are ready for anything, we can open to our inevitable losses, and to the depths of our sorrow. We can grieve our lost loves, our lost youth, our lost health, our lost capacities. This is part of our humanness, part of the expression of our love for life.

If our hearts are ready for anything, we are touched by the beauty and poetry and mystery that fill our world.