While a man desires a woman,
His mind is bound
As closely as a calf to its mother.

As you would pluck an autumn lily,
Pluck the arrow of desire.

The word desire suggests that there is something we do not have. If we have everything already, then there can be no desire, for there is nothing left to want. I think that what the Buddha may have been trying to tell us is that we have it all, each of us, all the time; therefore, desire is simply unnecessary.

We who are like senseless children shrink from suffering, but love its causes. We hurt ourselves; our pain is self-inflicted! Why should others be the object of our anger?

How long the path may be depends for any man on where he stands today and his speed of travel. These are his past and present choosing, but the beginning of the way is here and now, and karma and rebirth are the means of treading it.

While the primary function of formal Buddhist meditation is to create the possibility of the experience of "being," my work as a therapist has shown me that the demands of intimate life can be just as useful as meditation in moving people toward this capacity. Just as in formal meditation, intimate relationships teach us that the more we relate to each other as objects, the greater our disappointment. The trick, as in meditation, is to use this disappointment to change the way we relate.

If a man's faith is unstable and his peace of mind troubled, his knowledge will not be perfect..