The great awareness comes slowly, piece by piece. The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning. The experience of spiritual power is basically a joyful one.

I have learned nothing in twenty years that would suggest that evil people can be rapidly influenced by any means other than raw power. They do not respond, at least in the short run, to either gentle kindness or any form of spiritual persuasion with which I am familiar.

I can remember years ago sitting on my bed and suddenly thinking, "I am God."

A discussion becomes destructive when it begins to generate more heat than light.

But for the first time, I had a religious identity. I had come home. And so I called myself a Zen Buddhist at the age of 18.

We cannot even let the other person into our hearts or minds unless we empty ourselves. We can truly listen to him or truly hear her only out of emptiness.

The will to grow is, in essence, the same phenomenon as love. Genuinely loving people are, by definition, growing people.