Years ago, when I was elected abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, a very complicated and burdensome position, people would ask me what priorities I had for my new role. I said that my first priority was my own happiness. This shocked people. But it made sense to me. An abbot practices at the center of a community. A crabby abbot will dampen everyone’s mood, while a happy abbot increases the community’s joy. We are all abbots, each of us practicing at the center of our various communities, so we should all cultivate our own happiness, not for ourselves (true happiness can never be selfish
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