Our most serious obstacle is the uncontrollable urge to convert everything to the familiar, to reduce it all to the level of the primate brain; to reject the living, breathing reality of the totality of all possible attention.

You really have so little choice - so little to decide. You get put through the machine and it chops you up and spits you out. Your life, it's all mechanical, of the machine, until you have free will. You can't be accepted into the Work until you have matured -- freed yourself and take responsibility for your life, become accountable for your every action. It's not just from coming to a school. It's an active process - you have to take the responsibility for yourself. When you're trapped in the machine, it doesn't matter what you do.

Our most serious obstacle is the uncontrollable urge to convert everything to the familiar, to reduce it all to the level of the primate brain; to reject the living, breathing reality of the totality of all possible attention.

Enlightenment is just the beginning, later on come other skills . . . patience, a forgiving nature, extreme attention . . . .

Ninety-nine percent of all work on self is attitudinal.