There's plenty going on that's substantial and transformative, beneficial and authentic. Just because somebody is in the media, it doesn't mean they're bad. It may mean they're the best, and occasionally you know the cream rises to the surface, but not always everything on the surface is cream.
Surya DasUnlike some of my other dharma brothers who got names that were very long and obscure, and nobody could remember or pronounce, that they didn't like. They wanted to give their names back, but it wasn't like that, it wasn't transactional. He would name some people and say 'you're married', and then they were married, but you know it wasn't really transactional.
Surya DasThere's plenty going on that's substantial and transformative, beneficial and authentic. Just because somebody is in the media, it doesn't mean they're bad. It may mean they're the best, and occasionally you know the cream rises to the surface, but not always everything on the surface is cream.
Surya DasWhen the sunset of life arrives, and its twilight shadows fade away; while dreams of the next begin to appear more vividly; may the inner-light essence of the Buddha, and all the radiant awakened ones, continuously guide us onwards and upwards, on the path of spiritual enlightment.
Surya DasWell neither of us were "Buddhists" then because it was new to us. We were 60's people. Psychedelic relics, you know... whatever, right on, radicals and world changers, social peaceniks perhaps, with a Buddhist spiritual veneer.
Surya DasEverybody has similar values. You travel around the world and everybody is different, but everybody is also the same in those ways. There's so much difference but there's so much similarity. Nobody wants to be harmed, or have their children, or their mates, or their relatives, or their families harmed, exploited, bombed, starved, dislocated, or become homeless refugees. So we're all similar in that way and spiritual life and religion is supposed to be part of the solution not part of the problem.
Surya DasBut you know the difference between sex and love. And sex can be part of love, but what moves your heart, what's really intimate, that's the real spirit. And that's very personal, it's also transpersonal. It's not impersonal, it's beyond any of us, it's transcendent of any of us, yet imminent in dwelling, imminent to each of us.
Surya Das