“But back to the original question: Wouldn’t an enlightened Zen master believe in Zen? Wouldn’t an enlightened Sufi believe in Islam?” “You’re talking about vehicles and destinations. Once one has arrived at the destination, the vehicle is discarded, forgotten. If I take a train to Chicago I get off the train and enjoy Chicago. I don’t drag the tra

“If you mean, can you get a deal on enlightenment—can you be awake without having to wake up—the answer is no. If you mean can you live a spiritual, compassionate life and still raise kids and have a house and a stock portfolio and a demanding career and all that, I assume the answer is yes, but it’s really not my thing.”

I wish someone had told me that there wasn’t something wrong with me and that I shouldn’t be trying to make it right; that I should stop trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. I wish someone had told me that I wasn’t like everyone else not because I was defective, but because I was designed for other things. Being different might seem like

The Willing Suspension of Disbelief Let us forget the lapse of time; let us forget the conflict of opinions. Let us make our appeal to the infinite, and take up our positions there. Chuang Tzu

The debate over free will versus predetermination provides a particularly good example of this teaching process. Students are perplexed by this question because they focus on an answer when all their attention should remain on the question. “Stay with the question,” I tell them. “Don’t worry about the answer, just get the question right. Examine yo

“Imagine you’re in the audience watching a play, and you slowly come to realize that the actors don’t know they’re actors. They think that they’re normal people going about their normal lives, unaware that they’re on a stage, performing. You could never even believe such a thing would be possible if you hadn’t been up there yourself believing the s

When she’s done, she’ll possess a clear understanding of the difference between being asleep within the cave, being awake within the cave, and being out of the cave, and if that’s all she ever gets from her time with me then she’ll at least be literate enough to order off the spiritual menu for the rest of her life.

Say I’m well fed and you’re starving. You come to me and ask how you can be well fed. Well, I’ve noticed that every time I eat a good meal, I belch, so I tell you to belch because that means you’re well fed. Totally backward, right? You’re still starving, and now you’re also offgassing like a pig. And the worst part of the whole deal—pay attention

“In the process of waking yourself up, you quickly realize that there’s no outside authority. You have to verify everything yourself. If you adopt something someone else said, it’s only after you have verified it for yourself. If Jesus, Buddha, or Lao-Tzu made it, you can make it. There’s no choice about this; you can’t walk in someone else’s shoes