How do you become enlightened? I don't know: Luck, karma, skill, friends in high places, friends in low places.

There are planes that are not light. There are planes that are shadowy. But that is not our interest in meditation. We want brightness, ecstasy, brilliance beyond comprehension.

There are some great stories in The Second Ring of Power about how Don Juan and Don Genaro found their apprentices and what they went through to fool their students into seeking light.

If you act impetuously, it will be uncertain, and you'll know it. It just won't feel right. It is better to wait.

The samurais were very interested in Zen because they admired the tremendous precision that the Zen Masters had, their lack of fear and pain and their absolute lack of fear of death.

Let us say your wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend makes you happy. If they leave, you're bound to be unhappy. You are the slave of the thing that makes you happy. You are a junkie and human relationships can be expensive habits.

I think perhaps the greatest book ever written was Ulysses by James Joyce.