If there is a central theme to what I called "a peaceful warrior's approach to living," and to The Four Purposes of Life, it is that there may be innumerable techniques or methods one can learn (from the Eastern spiritual cultures and from the Western psychological tradition), but that above and beyond all these technologies waits the school of everyday life.

My parents, like others of "The Greatest Generation" who lived through the Great Depression and World War II, wanted to provide the best possible life for their children. My mother and father both attended college but dropped out to earn a living during the Depression, working the rest of their lives at blue-collar work.

When you begin your transcendental training, focusing your best efforts, without attachment to outcomes, you will understand the peaceful warrior's way.

People love miracle stories and dramatic moments of transcendence or transformation, and may then pursue their own dramatic "awakenings."

Life is not suffering; it's just that you will suffer it, rather than enjoy it, until you let go of your mind's attachments and just go for the ride freely, no matter what happens.

Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is... The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds.

A little bit of something beats a lot of nothing. Break the largest of difficult tasks into the smallest of steps and it can be done.