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Before we go any further, I want to make it clear that I don’t want anyone reading this to get hardening of the heartwaves in the name of Buddhism. Let’s not use Buddhism to become quietists, or puritanical holier-than-thou fundamentalists. While sitting in meditation, let’s not become stiff, rigid, or stuck in any fixed position, like an inert Buddha statue. The spontaneous fullness that is known as Buddha-nature is always open and flowing. It is not static; it is ecstatic. It is not frozen didactic, and it is not fixed. The Buddha within you isn’t going to look exactly like the Buddha inside me, or inside any of your friends and family. Buddhahood—enlightenment—has myriad faces, all equally marvelous. Just take a look around.

Taking an inward path is not about cultism or blind faith. It is about genuine leadership, embodying and enacting truth’s highest principles—not mere sheeplike followership. Conforming is not the deepest teaching of the spiritual traditions. The deepest teachings are about radiant awareness and the inherently joyful freedom of being. It’s not just about maintaining a quiet mind. If all you want is a quiet mind, there is a huge pharmaceutical industry that would be happy to serve that need.

The path to enlightenment and awakening is the opposite of squelching and containing yourself or trying to keep up a nice, efficient, stainless-steel persona—very shiny but also very hard and cold. There is no substitute for living a juicy genuine life of Buddha activity. The Buddha is bubbling, happy, and sad. Waking up the Buddha is about letting go of your fixed persona and becoming awake, liberated, and aware.

Starting on a spiritual path means leaving the superficial currents and getting into the deeper waters of real sanity. We’re not just swimming against the stream here; we’re actually plumbing the deeper waters of being in order to reconnect with our own innate nature. Where do we start? After he arrived in India in 1959, an old lama was asked, “How did you manage to escape from Tibet and cross the high and snowy Himalayas by foot?” He answered, “One step at a time.”

The path, as always, begins beneath your feet with the first step you take. Where do you stand right now? This is where we begin.

Breathe.

Breathe again.

Smile.

Relax.

Arrive

Where you are.

Be natural.

Open to effortlessness,

To being

Rather than doing.

Drop everything.

Let go.

Enjoy for a moment

This marvelous joy of meditation.

A TIBETAN PROPHECY

When the iron bird flies, and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the World, and the Dharma will come to the land of red-faced people.

—PADMA SAMBHAVA, EIGHTH-CENTURY INDIAN GURU AND FOUNDER OF THE FIRST TIBETAN MONASTERY

Tibet has always been renowned for its arcane knowledge and esoteric secrets. Therefore it should hardly come as a surprise that Padma Sambhava, the Indian guru who introduced Buddhism to Tibet, left behind a prophecy not only about the Tibetan people and the spread of Buddhism, but also about the future of transportation.

Anyone interested in Tibetan Buddhism quickly discovers the importance of Padma Sambhava in Tibetan history. Revered by the Tibetan people as being fully enlightened, Padma Sambhava is often referred to as Guru Rinpoche (Precious Guru) or the Second Buddha. It was sometime around A.D. 763 when Padma Sambhava founded the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet at Samyé, yet his life and work had a direct impact on the West. That’s because Padma Sambhava is credited with imparting and preserving many of the core teachings that first attracted Westerners to Tibetan Buddhism. Practical as well as visionary, Padma Sambhava foresaw that there would be an attempt by an early Tibetan ruler to suppress Buddhism. He therefore instructed his disciples to conceal sacred writings and ritual implements in the many rocks and caves in the mountains and countryside of Tibet. Tradition holds that there were more than a hundred such texts, known as terma, the Tibetan