The spiritual mind is always metaphorical. Spiritual thinking is poetic thinking. It's always trying to put a very diaphanous experience into words, realizing all the while that words are inadequate.

There is a saying in Bali: "We have no art. We do everything as beautifully as possible." This reflects my philosophy of practice. I try to remember daily what a gift it is to have the privilege of living in this wondrous world.

You don't go through a deep personal transformation without some kind of dark night of the soul.

To sustain love, a man and a woman must continually be marrying and divorcing, moving with, against, away from, and beyond each other, saying 'yes' and 'no'.

Being pretty successful, I can, of course, afford some luxuries. But I realize again and again how we have to disillusion ourselves of the idea that these things are going to give us real satisfaction.

The best practice is to follow the advice posted on every railroad crossing: Stop. Look. Listen.

If we come from good families where we have been supported well, there is a disillusionment we have to undergo in terms of the culture's values. We have to get beyond our cultural mythology to find out who we are.