The truth comes when you can see that your self-image is just a convenient reference point and nothing more, and that you as you had imagined yourself do not exist.

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.

Zazen isn't about blissing out or going into an alpha brain-wave trance. It's about facing who and what you really are, in every single goddamn moment. And you aren't bliss, I'll tell you that right now. You're a mess. We all are.

It's crazy to me how concerned people get with what it looks like and what you can do there. People may as well be talking about JRR Tolkien or Star Trek or something.

Buddha might be the one thing that could settle Godzilla down. He might say, "Listen Godzilla, you don't have to do all this. Just chill out a little bit and everything will be fine".

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.

The obvious example would be Jesus. Jesus is an object of fascination for me. He's an interesting historical character because we don't know much about him. He seems to be a guy who was in touch with something deeper than most people around him were and someone who was very concerned with trying to communicate that.