The Dude and the Zen Master

you’ve got to put down the boat, let go of the way you did it before, and get in that empty space again. Let’s say the question is timing. You might think, See how you paused there two and a half seconds? That was so great, that’s the right timing. That won’t be necessarily true the next time around, because everything changes.

Life’s not about not getting knocked over, it’s about how fast you come back. So if you think, Oh, I got knocked over and that’s a sign that I’m not practicing well enough, all that happened was that you met a situation that was a little bigger than you, and that gave you a new opportunity for more practice.

The Dude does his best to take it easy. And that brings to mind going with the grain. When I think of Lily, my goddaughter, I think of the first syllable of her name, Li. In Chinese, that literally means the veins of a leaf, the grain in wood or in marble. I did a scene in Surf’s Up where I’m trying to give a lesson about going with the grain while

If I can somehow take a leap and see the workings of the whole universe, I’ll see lots of things that are not at peace with others. Wolves attack sheep, weeds kill flowers; that’s life. I’ve worked all my years to reduce suffering, but I don’t try to change the wolves or the weeds.

Even when people see the value of something, the desire to keep their identity as a conservative, a liberal, or anything else can be stronger than their sense of interconnectedness—even if it means that kids go hungry. How can I work with a liberal, even if we have the same goals? It makes no sense, but the differences can take over. That’s what we

In Japan there’s a phrase that says that the higher a tree grows, the more wind it has on it. It’s a natural part of what it means to grow. You could try to force the wind to stop, but you could also work with it, just like you do in sailing. Be patient; let the circumstances take you there. Go with the wind, and you’re either going to get there or

I find that a lot of people use words and terms without knowing what they mean; they’re sort of hiding behind their own talk. My Ph.D. is in applied mathematics. My advisor used to say, “If you can’t explain it, you don’t know it.” If you can’t put it in regular, simple language that people can understand, then you don’t really know what you’re tal

My friend the clown and activist Wavy Gravy also tries to change the system, but in a very different style from Lenny Bruce. Wavy once told me he was picketing against the nuclear work at the Livermore National Laboratory in California. The police came to break up the sit-in and he was in a Santa Claus clown costume. They grabbed him, took off his

Robert Johnson wrote that the word happiness comes from to happen. Our happiness is what happens.

you know what your story reminds me of? Those dolls that are full of sand at the bottom. You push them and they oscillate quickly from side to side, and then come back to center. So as you practice, you’re filling up with sand. At first, even a weak force hits you and almost knocks you over, but you oscillate in big arcs till you come up standing a