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.

Not very subtle, but effective — because once someone is firmly placed in the enemy box, our attribution mechanisms make escaping the box very hard.

As John Ruskin put it in the nineteenth century, “Curiosity is a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing.”

Far be it from me to try to talk you out of all your illusions. By and large, my philosophy is Live and let live: if you’re enjoying the Matrix, go crazy.

Whenever people are throwing things and screaming, that’s a tipoff that the brain is under new management.

Now the Buddha pulls out the big guns. He reminds Aggivessana that “when anyone doesn’t answer when asked a legitimate question by the Tathagata [the Buddha] up to three times, his head splits into seven pieces right here.” At that point Aggivessana looks up and, ominously, sees a spirit with an iron thunderbolt in hand.

The Buddha said anger has a “poisoned root and honeyed tip.”