Discrimination means keeping the negative and unhappy thoughts away and allowing the pretty thoughts to come inside you.

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.

The teaching of the ten thousand states of mind, particularly as one advances further, is done through transmission. This is where we differ from teaching algebra or calculus.

To feel that you are the Buddha of all times and places and that in some way the salvation of anyone, including yourself, depends upon you, I think there's a lot of ego involved in such a view, not much self-transcendence.

Spend time alone in areas of low population density, where you can feel the stillness. Go out into the desert or up into the mountains or to the ocean where there aren't too many people.

Simply by performing good actions and thinking good thoughts you will not attain enlightenment. It takes something more.

We are all incarnate Buddhas. We just have not realized it deeply. We have not moved the mind - what our friend Don Juan calls the assemblage point.