The Dude and the Zen Master

No matter how hard we try, situations come up that we’ll want to separate from and leave behind us. But if you are going somewhere else, let me say this much: At least change the boat and the oars. Say I get to the other side, what do I do? Well, I got here thanks to this beautiful boat with the set of oars, so I’ll just hold on to them and carry t

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

You’ve got to take care of yourself on the path, not just when you cross the goal line, because don’t forget, wherever you are, that’s the goal line.

So the question is no longer, how do I get from here to there? The question is: How do I get from here to here? How do I experience the fact that, instead of having to get there for something, it’s right here and now? This is it; this is the other shore. In Buddhism we sometimes call it the Pure Land.

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

remember one occasion when he was doing one of his TV shows and a director was talking to a camera assistant or a PA, getting very angry and not showing respect. My father went up to the director and said in front of everybody, “I will be in my trailer when you’re ready to apologize to this guy that you’ve offended. Come in and let me know.” I was

“Take care of yourself right now. Befriend what’s happening, not just who you’re supposed to be or what the world should be like. This is where you are now, so how do you care for yourself this minute?”

BERNIE: The Chinese language is made of symbols rather than letters. Their word for difficulty consists of two characters, and one of the characters is opportunity. Hidden within every difficulty is an opportunity. I’ve worked a lot in the world of business, and the problems you run into in business become golden opportunities.

I love the term trim tabbing, which Buckminster Fuller popularized. You see, giant oceangoing tankers need a giant rudder to make them turn. But engineers discovered that it takes too much energy to turn the giant rudder. Instead, they came up with the trim tab, a tiny rudder attached to the big rudder. The little rudder turns the big rudder and th