We're losing a ritual. We're losing a ritual that I believe is transformative, transcendent, and is at the heart of the patient-physician relationship.
Everybody was happy my brother was locked up. Not me because I know what it feels like to be in there. It ain't made for everybody, but I knocked a lot of blocks down.
There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism that relates to the goddess Tārā. Following her cultivation of bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's motivation, she looked upon the situation of those striving towards full awakening and she felt that there were too few people who attained Buddhahood as women. So she vowed, 'I have developed bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lifetimes along the path I vow to be born as a woman, and in my final lifetime when I attain Buddhahood, then, too, I will be a woman.'
In adversity, there is opportunity. Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity. I've never known anybody to achieve anything without overcoming adversity. Adversity is another way to measure the greatness of individuals. I never had a crisis that didn't make me stronger.
Let's say you went to Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge, and you said, 'I've come here because I'm in search of morality, guidance and consolation; I want to know how to live,' - they would show you the way to the insane asylum.