Many spiritual teachers - in Buddhism, in Islam - have talked about first-hand experience of the world as an important part of the path to wisdom, to enlightenment.

I feel like there is always something trying to pull us back into sleep, that there is this sort of seductive quality in all the hedonistic pleasures that pull on us.

I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.

I'm such a girl for the living room. I really like to stay in my nest and not move. I travel in my mind, and that that's a rigorous state of journeying for me. My body isn't that interested in moving from place to place.

For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?

We judge on the basis of what somebody looks like, skin color, whether we think they're beautiful or not. That space on the Internet allows you to converse with somebody with none of those things involved.

Many spiritual teachers - in Buddhism, in Islam - have talked about first-hand experience of the world as an important part of the path to wisdom, to enlightenment.

Death is with you all the time; you get deeper in it as you move towards it, but it's not unfamiliar to you. It's always been there, so what becomes unfamiliar to you when you pass away from the moment is really life.

I thought about how we need to make children feel that there are times in their lives when they need to be alone and quiet and to be able to accept their aloneness.

Yesterday I was thinking about the whole idea of genius and creative people, and the notion that if you create some magical art, somehow that exempts you from having to pay attention to the small things.

I'm so disturbed when my women students behave as though they can only read women, or black students behave as though they can only read blacks, or white students behave as though they can only identify with a white writer.

I began writing a book on love because I felt that the United States is moving away from love.

It's in the act of having to do things that you don't want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego.

I have been thinking about the notion of perfect love as being without fear, and what that means for us in a world that's becoming increasingly xenophobic, tortured by fundamentalism and nationalism.

When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us.

Some people act as though art that is for a mass audience is not good art, and I think this has been a very negative thing. I know that I have wanted very much to write books that are accessible to the widest audience possible.

Sadly, anarchy has gotten such a bad name. We don't really see much evidence of it because people associate it with reckless abandon.

Whenever women struggle with breast cancer and face better care than ever thats feminism.

If you do not know what you feel then it is difficult to choose love it is better to fall. Then you do not have to be responsible for your actions.

To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.

While the patriarchal boys in hip hop crew may talk about keeping it real there has been no musical culture with black men at the forefront of its creation that has been steeped in the politics of fantasy and denial as the more popular strands of hip hop.

The rage of the oppressed is never the same as the rage of the privileged.

Even the most subjected person has moments of rage and resentment so intense that they respond, they act against. There is an inner uprising that leads to rebellion, however short lived. It may be only momentary but it takes place. That space within oneself where resistance is possible remains.

When we work with love we renew the spirit; that renewal is an act of self-love, it nurtures our growth.

True resistance begins with people confronting pain... and wanting to do something to change it.

Sexism has never rendered women powerless. It has either suppressed their strength or exploited it.

There must exist a paradigm, a practical model for social change that includes an understanding of ways to transform consciousness that are linked to efforts to transform structures.

I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism.

The reasons why I left were to do with my interest in Buddhism. There were experiences over a period of about six months which caused me to decide to give up music, so one morning I felt I had to go to E.G. Management and tell them.

Buddhism has had a major effect on who I am and how I think about the world. What I have learned is that I like all religions, but only parts of them.

All of the religions - with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism, which doesn't believe in a heaven - teach that heaven is a better place. At the end of the program, I say that heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common.

In Buddhism there are words you can say... as you say the words with rhythm the conscious tells the subconscious.

Buddhism teaches you to embrace change.

Mary, my little girl, was confirmed in a Buddhist temple. She saw the Life write up on Buddhism, with pictures of the ceremony, and she said she wanted to be confirmed there because she only liked Jesus as a kid. She was a little disappointed in him when he grew up.

Buddhism has become a socially recognized religious philosophy for Americans, whereas it used to be considered an exotic religion.

I never stopped studying Buddhism. In the past few years, in between movies, I do a retreat.

Many spiritual teachers - in Buddhism, in Islam - have talked about first-hand experience of the world as an important part of the path to wisdom, to enlightenment.

Buddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by somekind of cosmic lawgiver.

Tibetan Buddhism had an enormous impact on me.

There are things that I value now that I didn't when I first went over there, like Zen Buddhism, which has become part of my life over the last couple years.

A text of Tibetan Buddhism describes the time of death as a unique opportunity for spiritual liberation from the cycles of death and rebirth and a period that determines our next incarnation.

I try to make sure that the Buddhism is more or less implicit in the music rather than explicit.

One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.

Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn't necessary.

Well, I'm Buddhist, Ray, and so part of my Buddhism has allowed me to look a little more deeply at people and the events in my life that created me. And I think a lot of that Buddhism comes out in the world view in this novel.

Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt.

When someone has a strong intuitive connection, Buddhism suggests that it's because of karma, some past connection.

I spend more time learning about Buddhism than English, which is why my English today is still bad.

A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.