June 2012 I’m currently teaching a meditation retreat up in Santa Sabina Retreat Center in Marin w the SF Insight Community, and am reminded of my spiritual ancestor Thomas Merton since they have pictures of him around this Dominican retreat center. A well-known quote from him “I didn’t become a monk so I would suffer more, I became a monk so I could suffer more effectively”. And a less well-known quote “In the night of our technological barbarism, monks must be as trees which exist silently in the dark and by their vital presence purify the air”. Whenever you meditate, you too are performing this function!