If you become obsessive in spiritual practice, if you just try and try, you are not going to be happy. You are going to be obsessive.

The force that drives the green fuse, as Dylan Thomas said, cannot be understood. So self-discovery is to accept your daily meditation, to observe yourself meditating and not be concerned with the results.

There is a certain degree of pain to be experienced in the search for self-knowledge, as there is a certain amount of joy. You just do it because you find yourself doing it. There just doesn't seem to be much else worthwhile.

I can understand pathways to enlightenment where people shun certain aspects of the sensual world because they feel that these aspects are very powerful; they're not in a position to control their appetites.

As a monk you have a responsibility to meditate many hours a day. Not just to sit there but to think of the ten thousand radiances.

There comes a time when a race of beings makes a decision. When they chose to reject enlightenment, it's the end of their world because the karma is inevitable. They have to destroy themselves.

Focusing on an enlightened teacher is a doorway. It is not a person. We are focusing on the light that passes through them. We are moving through them into the planes of light and eventually to nirvana.