the Buddha discovered that there is no need to struggle to prove our existence, that we need not be subject to the rule of the three lords of materialism.

In the absence of thoughts and emotions the lords bring up a still more powerful weapon, concepts.

We must approach spirituality with a hard kind of intelligence.

If we can open, then we suddenly begin to see that our expectations are irrelevant compared with the reality of the situations we are facing. This automatically brings a feeling of disappointment.

The method that the Buddha discovered is meditation. He discovered that struggling to find answers did not work. It was only when there were gaps in his struggle that insights came to him. He began to realize that there was a sane, awake quality within him which manifested itself only in the absence of struggle. So the practice of meditation

The very notion that we will get something from a guru—happiness, peace of mind, wisdom, whatever it is we seek—is one of the most difficult preconceptions of

We must surrender our hopes and expectations, as well as our fears, and march directly into disappointment, work with disappointment, go into it, and make it our way of life, which is a very hard thing to do. Disappointment is a good sign of basic intelligence. It cannot be compared to anything else: it is so sharp, precise, obvious, and direct. If

If a world of nameable things exists, then “I” as one of the nameable things exists as well. We wish not to leave any room for threatening doubt, uncertainty, or confusion.

Nationalism, communism, existentialism, Christianity, Buddhism—all provide us with identities, rules of action, and interpretations of how and why things happen as they do.