If you think it makes a difference if I have ten thousand sports cars, ten million girlfriends and lead a very flashy life ... I don't think you should work with any teacher because you don't know what it is all about yet.

As a dialectical teacher, I have had many lives where I have taught Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and mysticism. I teach in many different modalites. But the theme that unites them - is love.

Your mind is filled with thoughts and desires. Your moods shift constantly. You are not sure what it is you want, it changes from moment to moment; there is little or no continuity in your life.

The balance and patience factors are much more critical in surfing than they are in snowboarding ... if you're out surfing serious waves and you wipe out, you don't land on soft snow. It's usually either very sharp coral, or you get raked across the beach gravel and sand while you're tumbling underwater.

Being a Buddhist monk means never losing one's optimism in spite of all difficulties. It also means being harder on yourself than any of your teachers ever were.

Existence is the awareness of awareness.

In Zen we strive to bring both the mind and the body into perfect combination, so that there is no intrinsic difference between them.