What do you guys think? "Following the path." OK, is letting go of anger compatible with a Western lifestyle? Is letting go of greed compatible with a Western lifestyle? You know, you can do it in the West. And of course all of you are in the West, and I come from the West and you can do it in the West. And you can do it in the East. But to be compatible with what everyone else wants to do, well, no, it's not going to be compatible. You're odd. You're all odd. You don't fit in. OK? You fit in on one side, you don't fit in on the other side. It's just that simple. You know, I can't say you're going to be compatible.
With the general Western lifestyle of which I know, I will never ever be 100% compatible with it. But certainly some percentage, yeah, I can be compatible. I can go mountain climbing, like I said with one of my brothers, but I'm not going to go to baseball games. I can do charity work in the West rather than trying to "take". You've all read the poem about, "trying to give instead of take". There are certainly lots of people in the West who are actually trying to a certain extent to follow the path, the path of purification, the path of becoming a better person, the path of Lovingkindness and so on. There are certainly people trying to do it, but we're the minority, right? We are the odd ones.
So when you ask, is it compatible with a Western lifestyle, I guess you've really got to ask, "Well, what kind of Western lifestyle are you talking about?" If you're talking about the normal Western lifestyle, well, we don't want to be totally compatible with that. We don't want to be compatible with greed. We don't want to be compatible with just wanting a bigger house, or another car, or three TVs in the house, and whatever else it is.
I remember years and years ago, though, watching two people talking. I wasn't really involved in the conversation; it was a Buddhist meditator and a communist union leader who was very materialistic. The discussion got into so much craziness that I felt I just didn't want to be part of it. But this person who was a communist union leader, who's very materialistic, very much living a Western lifestyle in the true sense of the word, was arguing that they had to fight to make sure that all their workers had enough money to have two cars and two TVs in every home. If that's the Western lifestyle you want, forget it for me, but obviously that's what a lot of people want in the West. So, when you think of which lifestyle you want to be compatible with, judge it on what qualities you really want to develop, whether it is East or West.