Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee draws on the Dhammapada to emphasize a core principle of spiritual success: vigilance, or watching. The fool is careless and enslaved by desire. The master has firm resolve.

Man is the only creature on Earth with the ability to choose. Unlike animals and plants, whose lives are determined by nature, humans possess a mind that allows for conscious choice.

Man is not born a true being but a becoming. He is a state of perpetual movement between opposing attitudes and emotional states. This becoming is marked by a continual search, an inner groping.

Lola calls it “faith without an object.” This search for something greater raises the perennial philosophical question: Who are you?

Lola discusses philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who calls man a “project"—one who creates himself by his own effort. Man is ...