Happiness is the default state of mind. It is not something that you pursue, it is something you allow.

Attention is the basis of all higher cognitive and emotional abilities.

Mindfulness is like exercise—it is not sufficient to just understand the topic; you can only benefit from it with practice.

If the mind is calm, your spontaneity and honest thoughts appear. You become more spontaneous.

Compassion is so pure, I don't think there is any way to taint it.

Happiness is just being.

A beautiful way to practice mindfulness, which is almost guaranteed to improve your social life, is to apply mindfulness toward others for the benefit of others. The idea is very simple—give your full moment-to-moment attention to another person with a nonjudgmental mind, and every time your attention wanders away, just gently bring it back. It is just like the meditation we have been practicing, except the object of meditation is the other person.

Emotional Intelligence is one of the best predictors of success at work and fulfillment in life and it is trainable for everyone.

Emotional skillfulness frees us from emotional compulsion. We create problems when we are compelled by emotions to act one way or another, but if we become so skillful with our emotions that we are no longer compelled, we can act in rational ways that are best for ourselves and everybody else.

If you want a strong curriculum for emotional intelligence, it is important to base it on neuroscience and data. It’s important not to be fluffy; if you’re fluffy, you lose people. For example, if everybody sits around in a circle, talking about emotions and bringing awareness to their breathing, half the people will leave, especially the engineers. They’ll say, “Screw it.” So you have to show the science behind emotional intelligence. Fortunately, good science does exist on this issue.