You don't understand. I only prostitute the part of the body that isn't important, and nobody suffers except my karma a little bit. I don't do big harm. You prostitute your mind. Mind is seat of Buddha. What you do is very very bad. You should not use your mind in that way

John Burdett

Categorized in : Mind Suffering Karma

Don't ask me when I first mastered the obvious.

John Burdett

obvious ask-me firsts

I am moonlighting for the Buddha.

John Burdett

Your fear of letting go prevents you from letting go of your fear of letting go.

John Burdett

letting-go

I don't want enlightenment, I want him. Sorry Buddha, I loved him more than you.

John Burdett

enlightenment sorry want

Expecting to be wrong about most things most of the time brings, finally, the kind of humility that leads to peace. I think.

John Burdett

kind humility thinking

Just studying Buddhism, then meditating and going to Buddhist monasteries, talking to Buddhist monks, combined with the Thai people themselves, changed the way I look at the world.

John Burdett

buddhist buddhism talking

There are plenty of brilliant people who are too stressed out to read challenging literary novels.

John Burdett

stressed challenges people

Las Vegas is the expression, in glitter and concrete, of Americas brittle and mutating id.

John Burdett

vegas glitter expression

The world other than as advertised can be an amazing place.

John Burdett

amazing-places world

To a Buddhist, contradictions only exist in a mind that has been forced to cultivate them.

John Burdett

contradiction buddhist mind

I think it is immensely difficult to get the U.S. interested in non-U.S. topics. I dont think this is because the average American reader is disinterested, but more because of publishers playing it safe: if a thriller based in L.A. is a sure winner, why spend money plugging one based in Paris - or Bangkok?

John Burdett

paris average thinking

In Southeast Asia the world is understood to be a vast, complex network of interdependent relationships. So when global capitalism makes it impossible for small-time rice farmers to feed their families and make a living, it is a natural thing for anyone in the family who can find an alternative source of income to do so.

John Burdett

income alternatives world

It is quite amazing how hard the subconscious works when it is made to understand that this life is not a rehearsal, there is no safety net and no assurance of any final closure. It is also quite appalling to realize how catatonic the imagination can become when we hedge our bets, opt for the safer direction at every fork in the path.

John Burdett

finals safety imagination

The great weakness of the West is that it has nothing with which to inspire loyalty except wealth. But what is wealth? Another washing machine, a bigger car, a nicer house to live in? Not much to feed the spirit in all that.

John Burdett

car loyalty house

Shun security, I advise aspiring novelists when they complain to me that they are stuck. Get disoriented. Maybe your agonizing writing block isnt agonizing enough. Your enemy is comfort.

John Burdett

block writing enemy

When you notice light seeping into your coffin, it's hard to go on pretending that you're still dead.

John Burdett

coffins light goes-on

The function of the West is to turn bodies and minds into products. It cannot understand that the rest of the world holds this to be an obscenity, a corruption of our nirvanic nature.

John Burdett

body mind world

I discovered that Thailand was one of those countries, like Sri Lanka and India, where memory of past lives used to be commonplace. Go back a few generations, and you find people talking about earlier lives with total certainty.

John Burdett

memory you people past

If the world is telling you you're successful, but you don't feel it, you might as well have failed.

John Burdett

feel you successful world

In the West, we've lost our intuitive understanding of how poverty shapes thinking.

John Burdett

poverty understanding lost thinking