A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what's going on inside of himself or herself ... lest the act of leadership create more harm than good.

We listen for guidance everywhere except from within.

A scholar is committed to building on knowledge that others have gathered, correcting it, confirming it, enlarging it.

Good teachers join self and subject and students in the fabric of life.

We can teach a good, formal lesson on forgiveness as a Christian virtue and all the doctrines that are attached to it. But to be in a real-life situation, a work camp or a trip or some other activity with young people where real forgiveness needs to happen, that's a different situation altogether. And that is where the deepest learning will occur.

I don't do a lot of top-down teaching.

Spirituality is not primarily about values and ethics, not about exhortations to do right or live well. The spiritual traditions are primarily about reality...an effort to penetrate the illusions of the external world and to name its underlying truth.