“What attracted me to Zen was my first teacher, Tim McCarthy. He was extremely genuine. It wasn’t even really a Zen thing, that sort of came along later.”

The thinking brain influences the body’s responses and it makes a neat little loop.

I mean, I can do that all day long. I can tell you the Vulcan’s are not actually devoid of emotion. That they work hard to suppress their emotions. And of course, there actually are no real Vulcan’s, though I know the ins and outs of them as fictional characters.

Zen practice is about not getting high on anything and in so doing getting high on absolutely everything. We then find that everything we encounter – bliss or nonbliss – possesses a tremendous depth and beauty that we usually miss.

Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That’s Buddhist morality.

Much of the hatred and fear of sexuality found in religions stems from the idea that sex is a thing of the body and that the body must be denied so that the spirit may be elevated. In Buddhism there is no notion that the body is made of inferior matter while the spirit flies free within.

Truly compassionate action arises spontaneously without thought and is carried out in real action with no anticipation of reward and, indeed, no concept of a doer of that action.

Real morality is based on a single criterion: right action, appropriate action, in the present moment and present situation.

I used to worry when I was a teenager, even into my twenties, after I’d heard something about schizophrenia and how people just suddenly become schizophrenic that I was insane.

Everything you have, whether it’s money or stuff, is an obligation. It is as much your duty to care for and nurture any object you own as it would be if that object were your child. All possessions come with responsibilities. More possessions equals greater responsibility.

It’s sort of another innovation, probably a good innovation, of Western culture to separate the ideas between science and philosophy, but it’s important to remember they weren’t always separate realms of inquiry.

Suffering occurs when your ideas about how things ought to be don’t match how they really are.

Leaving home’ to me means adopting the attitude that the pursuit of the truth is more vital than the pursuit of what society – your home – tells you is important.

Faith keeps you going, but doubt keeps you from going off the deep end.

I was very attracted to the way that Zen did not go into the imagination land. And now I’ve forgotten what your first question was and how we were going to tie this together.

One of the things that’s great about doing a show over and over again… is that you have to find ways to make it spontaneous, as though everything is happening for the first time… to continue to mine the material and find new things.

To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.

The United States accused Syria, and because you accused you have to bring evidence [of chemical weapons], this first of all. We have to find evidences when we are there.

I’m a great believer that the most important years are the sort of early years but the preschool years and then into the first and second grades. If you get a good base in the first and second grade and you can read, you can do anything.

Running for money doesn’t make you run fast. It makes you run first.

Maybe Oliver Stone doesn’t lend himself well to remakes or sequels, because he does them so well the first time.

Yeah, I’m very impressed with Lifetime, this is the first time I’ve worked with them. I really like the kind of programming that they’re into, so I’m hoping that I will.

I so enjoy being old because for the first time I don’t have to do anything-work, teach, study. I feel very good about myself-and at my age I can say no to anything now if I don’t want to do it. What a liberating word.