That’s what self-discovery seems to mean to most people. You’re going to beat yourself up. You’re going to reduce what you’re supposed to be and do to a set of rules so you can defy them, or so you can perform them and feel smug.
Humility simply means that you do a great job at everything and it isn’t really a big deal.
What matters is that you meditate, you’re seeking enlightenment, you’re on the pathway to enlightenment, and you’re having fun. Don’t look for reassurance in the eyes of others. Look for reassurance in your own eyes. Only you know if Buddhist practice is improving the quality of your life.
Buddhism is a practice in which we learn to avoid injuring others, and ourselves. It’s a practice in which we learn to respond to beauty, and to respond to difficult circumstances with patience, with a sense of calm, with clarity.
It is not bad living in a monastery. I’ve done it many times in many lives. But I think you can do a better job outside the monastery, if you have the necessary component parts.
I think one can advance faster outside a monastery if you use the experiences of daily life to advance yourself.
The spirit of the West, of America, is different than the East. The cultural conditioning is very different. It seems to be harder for people to work in teams, more difficult for people here to live in harmony, in a monastery.
The person who’s in the Zen monastery, who’s doing a kind of poor job at meditating and a half-ass job cleaning the gardens is not doing very good yoga.
The person in the business suit who works on Wall Street, who does their work perfectly, is probably evolving a lot faster, if they also meditate.
I think to be in a monastery or an ashram is not always the answer because we don’t fight, we kick back. We don’t listen to Sri Krishna.
I don’t think there is a right approach to teaching self discovery. Every situation is unique.
There is a certain beauty and refinement that is often found in our world and it is expensive. It shouldn’t necessarily be so. It is just the way our economic system is.
Truth occurs in unusual places. Sometimes it’s in the frozen food section of the supermarket, sometimes it appears while you are waiting for your car to be fixed, sometimes you see it while in bed with someone you love, sometimes you find it while you’re meditating on a lone mountain.
You can live in the world and have all the myriad experiences that life has to offer and yoke your awareness field to the planes of light, and eventually to nirvana itself.
Between the creative, open and spontaneous approach to life, and the highly disciplined, pragmatic approach, there’s a doorway, if you can find it – and it leads to immortality.
You need to become a winner to go beyond winning and losing.
This is the fourth age, the Kali Yuga, and it’s a time of great darkness. At the end of this age, there’s supposed to be a cosmic dissolution and then life begins anew. It’s a wonderful cycle of rebirth.
We live in a world where money is necessary. You can’t just go out and roam the forest and the cities, at least in America.
People in the West sometimes have these marvelous visions of India and Tibet. They assume that there are all these sadhus walking around and everybody is breathing enlightenment. Forget it. Don’t look at it through rose-colored glasses.
What we are seeking to do is not melt the map of America. We are seeking to melt the self, the solid form that we consider ourselves to be.