OK, you're alive. How aware are you, of anything? Can you see eternity? Do you live in the land of the perpetually happy?

Krishna once said to Arjuna: Consider the past and future with an equal mind, and pass the peanut M&M's.

If I ever write an autobiography about teaching meditation in the West, I'll call it "Pissing In the Wind - Teaching Buddhism in America".

I like extreme athletics, extreme meditation and extremely beautiful women. Perhaps I'm an extreme person, or it's simply my Karma. But I must tell you, as if you hadn't read about me in a newspaper or seen me on a magazine format television show, there are extreme risks involved with all three.

I can assure you, as a practitioner of Buddhism, that there are ten thousand states of mind, at least, give or take a few billion.

I don't put much stock in powers that people have to hurt others, in sorcery and all this nonsense. There are murders and there are dictators. That is just a part of life. The intelligent use of power in yoga can assist you avoiding that side of humanity.

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.