Wholeness reminds me of the word context. President Obama declared that by 2015 we’re going to end childhood hunger. In doing that, he created a context, a national agreement that childhood hunger has no place in our country. So the question now becomes, how are we going to do it? By providing the context, the general agreement, he gets us

I look at movies the same way. The final movie is the snakeskin, which can be pretty interesting and valuable. The snake is what happens while we’re making the movie—the relationships, the experience. I try to open wide and get really connected with the people I’m working with—the director, the cast, the production crew—all of us cooking in a safe

One of the key messages of Shakyamuni Buddha was that everything is change. That’s why the phrase New shit has come to light is so important.

I met Bernie at a dinner thrown by a neighbor of mine for him and Ram Dass, author of Be Here Now and many other wonderful books. I sat between these two guys and had a great time. Bernie and I really hit it off; we both cared about a lot of the same stuff.

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.

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

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

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.