Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment

The thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi is said to have written, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” It turns out there’s some question as to whether Rumi did write that, but, anyway, if he did, I think he was on to something.

He reared his head back and laughed for a full five seconds before continuing to quote his mother: “Is this why you become a Buddhist monk, to become a vegetable?”

The more I thought about it, the more that lizard and I seemed to have in common. We were both thrown into a world we didn’t choose, under the guidance of behavioral algorithms we didn’t choose, and were trying to make the best of the situation. I felt a kind of kinship with the lizard that I’d never felt with a lizard.