Buddhism is the study of changing who we are, modifying or perhaps totally restructuring ourselves as perceivers.
Buddhism is the study of power initially. It takes a certain amount of power to even know your potential - to have the sense that you can change the way you perceive.
Buddhism is perception, gaining control of the mind and directing one's attention, to raise the kundalini energy so that it flows with such volatility and force that we simply perceive life correctly.
Buddhism leads you to the awareness that all things are holy. Everything is holy. The dark has its own light, in other words.
In Buddhism we don't really believe in sin and salvation as Westerners would define them. We believe in the limitless possibilities of the present and of future moments.
What is evil? There is no such thing. In Buddhism we don't recognize evil and therefore we don't give it any power over us.
Buddhism is the study of the way the mind works. One has to be able to hold a large number of relational concepts simultaneously in the mind. It is necessary to grid, to literally unlock realities and dimensions with the power of your mind.
Tonight is not the end of the world. This is our hot tip of the evening.
I don't know how much you know about Zen, but you'll know less when I'm done with you.
You may have had countless lives, and many more stretching before you, and what else have you got to do with your time?
Forever is not an idea or a concept, it is reality. All of the things here come from forever. We call forever nirvana in Zen.
The mind of the Buddha is perfect because it is empty and yet it contains all things.
You and I are both life. There's just the experience of every moment. We like to call them moments. There isn't really such a thing. There's just is-ness; there's just eternity.
There are no words, there's only the possibility of a moment even more incredible a little bit further down the road.
You come back to the beginning. That's why in the "Searching for the Ox" sequence, at the very end of that sequence of the Zen paintings, we're back in the world again.
The world is filled with people who understand. I personally value people who don't understand. People who understand have nothing more to learn. People who don't understand have hope. Do you understand?
I don't think anyone knows why they meditate. As a matter of fact I'm not even sure that we do meditate. All we know is that we don't know.
A person trying to meditate is doing something that's impossible since meditation is not an action.
You're not the doer. What's to do? You can't undo what's not done. It's all one anyway, why think about it? But you need to discriminate, so you'd better think about it.
I'm not exactly sure where we are, but I'm confident of where we're not.
Stop trying to figure it all. Why worry about it all so much? Why not just live? And then you die. And then you live again, unless, of course, you follow me.
Perfection is not a final state. It is a state of mind. There are ten thousand states of mind.
The reason you see yourself as a creep is because you have an appreciation of what perfection is, whereas no one else conceives of themselves in that way, since they don't even strive.
What is perfect? From the Zen mind, perfection is not being there.
When you realize your own emptiness, that will be something, won't it?
