The Dude De Ching: New Annotated Edition

by Oliver Benjamin

To avoid disappointing or deceiving ourselves we should learn from the patterns, but not take any one pattern as a permanent inviolable truth.

The degree to which no one can agree on the meaning of “God,” for instance, renders it nearly meaningless.

Self-importance and self-righteousness are among most divisive and dangerous habits humans can adopt—they preclude us from sympathizing with others and prevent us from apprehending anything new. All fundamentalism is a form of addiction, but to a stance rather than a substance. So just as a physically healthy person moderates their intake of food and alcohol, so should we monitor our intake of ideas.

Laden as we are with problems not yet solved, it can be difficult to attend to problems that have not yet started to surface. But the problems we have now occurred precisely because we didn’t attend to them way back before they grew unwieldy. Therefore, if we can spend at least part of the day attending to our seedlings, this can pay off hugely at some point down the road.