When you visit the Zen Monasteries, one of the first things required is that you bring a donation. They have to pay for those monasteries. The upkeep is fantastic. The monks have to be fed, and so on.

That's what self-discovery seems to mean to most people. You're going to beat yourself up. You're going to reduce what you're supposed to be and do to a set of rules so you can defy them, or so you can perform them and feel smug.

Don't judge others. Always be open to them. Avoid the cult mentality, you know, the super-slick, "I'm superior because I meditate, because I'm on the pathway to enlightenment," the subtle ego nonsense, terrible trap.

Buddhism isn't about temples, and incense, and shaved heads, and robes. It's not about church. There are aspects of Buddhism that involve that. People enjoy that, it helps them, it strengthens their practice.

You have to learn to be very, very gentle to start with - with yourself eventually. Meditation is not something that you force. It is something that happens to you because life gives you a gift.

People want to will their self realization. They want to know what the right thing to do all the time is. There is no right thing. There's no code. There are certain basic recommendations.

Stopping thought also involves shifting your values. Thought is stimulated by ideas that we have about life and the world.