Do not feel that you are destined to enlightenment in this life. You have no idea. This is an illusion of selfhood. It's gross ignorance and egotism.

There is competition in Zen. Let's not be ridiculous. There is competition in everything in life; being a winner in Zen means, competing and winning in the world of enlightenment.

The ashram is where everyone lives in the same building or on the same grounds. You feel that it's selfish for you to devote your life to one person. You don't just love the one, you love the many also.

It's easy to tell the evolutionary level of a group of beings, or an individual being, simply by examining their behavior, their art, their psychology, their thought forms, their lingual structures, their history, their present moment, their future ideas, and the quality of their emotions.

You have to come to the world of enlightenment with open hands, not clinched fists, without an agenda.

Do a strong work meditation all day. You won't be as exhausted as everyone else because you have been gaining a kind of internal power from your work.

Economics is important because it's possible to buy the places that are necessary to live in relative inaccessibility and seclusion, or to move with a bit of style and chicness into the middle of civilization.