Sit in front of an object of concentration with the eyes open. Focus on a candle flame, or a yantra, a little dot, something small. Just look at it. Focus on it until there is nothing else in your mind. This develops willpower.

Very few individuals have the tenacity and the love to propel them beyond everything they know and can trust to face the unknown, let alone be absorbed in it.

The big problem with power, of course, is obsession. Once you get some of it and feel it, it dominates your whole life and it's all you can think about. That doesn't have to happen.

In Buddhism we have a great deal of etiquette. Etiquette is simply ways of living to conserve energy. Etiquette allows people to live in harmony with their environment.

Life is an endless matrix of existence. And as you experience it in that pure form, that's what we call enlightenment.

Never get so stuck in being responsible and mindful that you can't let it all go and run off chasing your private dream, if it leads to the shiny worlds, the worlds of beauty.

The surface personality is only the beginning of what we are. So as we meditate, we still that surface personality, we can see beyond it, and we see that we encompass multitudes.