I really thought Reagan was going to push the button and blow us all up. It was scary. So when they did the 1998 American Godzilla film, Hollywood didn't understand what Godzilla was.

The state of ambiguity - that messy, greasy, mixed-up, confused, and awful situation you're living through right now - is enlightenment itself.

I think the understanding of oneness and interconnectivity of the whole Universe is something we have innately, something we're born with. We are however very skillful at ignoring and pretending we don't have or know it.

the only real time as far as Buddhism is concerned is right now. Right now there is no old age or death because old age and death are descriptions of things as they are now when we compare them to things as they used to be.

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.

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.

So he [Shoko Asahara] was insane but managed to convince a couple thousand people that he was enlightened. Western culture, which Japan is now definitely a part of, doesn't have an understanding of what Enlightenment is.