As a student of enlightenment your attitude should not be to become enlightened. It should be to learn.

You identify with your self. You have a personal history. You have commitments. There are things that you want to experience and other things that you want to avoid.

I learned from my own teachers, a long time ago in another universe, the quality of quiet fortitude that is renewed by a person's love of light.

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.

It is not bad living in a monastery. I've done it many times in many lives. But I think you can do a better job outside the monastery, if you have the necessary component parts.

Wisdom is seeing that there are templates in the universe that you can follow. They will show you what to do and what not to do. In order to see them you have to make your mind very quiet, very still.

When I go visit my brother monks in Japan and sit down with other Zen Masters, they look at my crazy clothes and my strange expression, but they feel the power that emanates from my dedication to the practice. So they are comfortable with me, yet they're very uncomfortable.