If you are going to set out to develop mystical powers to impress your friends and do other things to your enemies, the difficulty with it is that you will not be moving towards enlightenment.

You might as well be perfect. There is really not all that much else to do here that is exciting.

As a dialectical teacher, I have had many lives where I have taught Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and mysticism. I teach in many different modalites. But the theme that unites them - is love.

You can get stuck in one state of mind or a general area of mind for a thousand lifetimes. Some states of mind afford better views than others.

Mysticism is the acceptance that everything cannot be logically explained.

The balance and patience factors are much more critical in surfing than they are in snowboarding ... if you're out surfing serious waves and you wipe out, you don't land on soft snow. It's usually either very sharp coral, or you get raked across the beach gravel and sand while you're tumbling underwater.

There is a big difference between the lower samadhis and the upper samadhis, like the difference between the Sierras and the Himalayas.