Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘When things don’t go the way you want them, that’s where we’re dealing with our human nature. We want what we want when we want it. And when we find ourselves getting in that state of mind, we just need to look inside a little bit and say, what’s happening? Oh, I’m not getting what I want. Let’s see, I feel about five years old right now and I didn’t get my birthday present I wanted or whatever. Those feelings, you can recognize them. I’ve had those feelings before.

My experience also is that we choose a partner who is quite different than we are. Most long-term relationships I know, the people are quite complimentary. For example, I’m very gregarious, maybe too much so. I sometimes say terminally gregarious. And Lou is an introvert and he’s not so extroverted. And I’m an optimist and he’s a pessimist. He says, a pessimist is someone who has to live with an optimist.’ (from the San Francisco Zen Center Archive)

We can add Blanche to the list of women arhats.