Teachings

Don't be distracted by inner peace. Don't be distracted by anxiety. Don't be distracted by anything. What are you doing right now? What is in front of you right now?

If you have a question, ask it and don't worry about what kind of mind you're using.. If you have a question, just ask it and see how it unfolds. And don't worry about questions resolving. If a question resolves, then it's been killed, and it's not alive anymore.

If you have this category called helping people you can’t help anyone. It’s like if you’re a parent of a baby or a toddler and you hear them crying in the middle of the night you don’t sit there and say 'how can I help this person?'

Our minds are just insane. They're totally nuts. That’s what we do all the time. We go around making meanings, we make this good, this bad, something that I see as a lovely image of flowers and you see it as poisonous mushrooms — we’re both making something. We’re both doing that. It’s just exactly what it is.

But it’s in everyone’s face. Now this is in our face in a way that it’s never been before. So we have to meet that. We have to not hole up in our bunker it a way that’s about us — like those rich people flying their airplanes out to islands — that’s not the way to do it.

If you come to the Zen Center, nobody asks what you believe, and nobody tells you what to believe. We tell you our practice forms: how to meditate, how to chant and so on. What you believe is your own business.

How did Buddhism start? It started when Buddha looked around and said “Whoa! Everybody’s suffering. What’s this suffering about, how can I end this suffering?”

What are you doing in this world? What is the direction of your life? What is the purpose of your life? Is it only for you?

Nobody ever says, 'Does your cooking affect your driving?' No one ever asks that. You just do all these things in your life.