Happiness is found principally in meditation.

I first went into samadhi when I was 19. I was meditating in the mountains and had been meditating on a daily basis for several years. Suddenly there was no time or space or life or death or myself or the Universe. I was absorbed in light.

It is in Zen practice that you gain power, balance and wisdom. The battles that you fight are within your own mind. That is where the real victories and defeats are.

The third stage is no thought.

If you are happier than you have ever been, then your power is increasing. But is it a fast a rate of climb as you would like?

A teacher is not someone you need perpetually. You need them to show you how to get through the doorway; but once you get through the doorway, you are on your own.

You have to free yourself from your mental conditioning through association with the holy, through doing good works, through meditating, through laughter, through love and through solitude.