“Today you are hurtling out of heaven. Where in the world will you land? When you get there, what in the world are you going to do? What is really worthwhile and what is just a distraction – no matter how much people tell you it’s not?”
Photo by L.A. Cicero
So offered Zoketsu Norman Fischer as contemplative questions to graduates at Stanford University this past Saturday, according to the Stanford Report. Fischer, founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation and former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, spoke on “How to Survive Your Promising Life” at the Baccalaureate, part of Stanford’s graduating ceremonies that is “a student-led commemoration acknowledging the spiritual contribution to the education of the whole person, organized under the auspices of the Office for Religious Life.”
Known for his sly wit, Fischer explained the way in which spiritual practices are “absolutely useless,” yet indispensable and limited only by the extent of our imagination, and sustained by a fearless kind of love and compassion.
Read the full account of Norman Fischer’s Stanford address here.
