Buddha is said to have given a "silent sermon" once during which he held up a flower and gazed at it. After a while, one of those present, a monk called Mahakasyapa, began to smile. He is said to have been the only one who had understood the sermon. According to legend, that smile (that is to say, realization) was handed down by twenty-eight successive masters and much later became the origin of Zen.

Complete surrender usually happens through living. Your very life is the ground where that happens. There may be a partial surrender and then there may be an opening, and then you may engage in spiritual practice.

The more you make your thoughts and beliefs into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself.

When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it.

I do not put much emphasis on periods of meditation - if you do meditation, it's fine - but the important thing is to bring the awareness into everyday life, into every little action that you do, into the varied challenges of everyday life.

When you get into your car, after you close the door, pause for a few seconds and observe the flow of your breath. Become aware of a silent but powerful sense of presence.

The world can only change from within.