The real goal of Zen is to find a way of life that's easy and undramatic. Strong attachments lead to upset and drama.

But people do the same thing with the Bible. They memorize all the fictional characters, the parameters and the rules of the game and think it's important, but I can't get excited about that myself.

People will come and give you sandwiches every six hours but you're really of no use. A lot of people get excited about guys like that but I can't get too excited about it because I think he's sorta useless. He's just sitting there in India under a blanket looking beautiful, so what.

There are many diamonds in the world and if you lose your favorite, you can work hard, earn a lot of money and get another one to replace it. But the moments of your life aren't like that. Once they're gone, they'll never return. Each and every one is the most precious thing in existence. You can never meaningfully compare one moment with any other. You can never meaningfully compare your life with anyone else's. No matter how rich someone else may be, no matter how happy they look, no matter how enlightened they seem, they can never be you. Never, ever, ever. Only you can live your life.

I remember writing the post but not what I said specifically, so I'll either repeat myself or say something completely different and baffle everybody.

One of the things I regret about not putting in that book or I think it's there but I didn't really elaborate on it, is contraception. I came across someone who articulated very clearly that one of the things which makes our approach to Buddhist practice in regards to sex different these days than it was in Buddhist times, is the simple existence of reliable contraception, which is a no brainer but I missed really addressing it in the book.

I mean somebody could write another book and say Brad's idea about Buddhism and sex is wrong, and here's mine, and that would be great. Just the fact that it would exist would be good because nobody is saying it, it's like they're trying to pretend it's not there.