When you notice light seeping into your coffin, it’s hard to go on pretending that you’re still dead.
I don’t want enlightenment, I want him. Sorry Buddha, I loved him more than you.
Don’t ask me when I first mastered the obvious.
I am moonlighting for the Buddha.
Your fear of letting go prevents you from letting go of your fear of letting go.
There are plenty of brilliant people who are too stressed out to read challenging literary novels.
Las Vegas is the expression, in glitter and concrete, of Americas brittle and mutating id.
The world other than as advertised can be an amazing place.
To a Buddhist, contradictions only exist in a mind that has been forced to cultivate them.
Expecting to be wrong about most things most of the time brings, finally, the kind of humility that leads to peace. I think.
The great weakness of the West is that it has nothing with which to inspire loyalty except wealth. But what is wealth? Another washing machine, a bigger car, a nicer house to live in? Not much to feed the spirit in all that.
Just studying Buddhism, then meditating and going to Buddhist monasteries, talking to Buddhist monks, combined with the Thai people themselves, changed the way I look at the world.
Shun security, I advise aspiring novelists when they complain to me that they are stuck. Get disoriented. Maybe your agonizing writing block isnt agonizing enough. Your enemy is comfort.
The function of the West is to turn bodies and minds into products. It cannot understand that the rest of the world holds this to be an obscenity, a corruption of our nirvanic nature.
You don’t understand. I only prostitute the part of the body that isn’t important, and nobody suffers except my karma a little bit. I don’t do big harm. You prostitute your mind. Mind is seat of Buddha. What you do is very very bad. You should not use your mind in that way.
Sincerity is the first casualty of capitalism. We.
The greatest pleasure in life is to be understood, is it not? But who in the world does an artist like you or me find to understand.
To be frank, nothing has changed since The Quiet American – when we finally destroy the whole world it will be with the very best of intentions.