Jeffrey Hopkins is well known for having been a translator for the Dalai Lama, a translator on numerous Buddhist texts, and a professor in Buddhist studies. He’s often known for being brutally honest about himself and his practice. He mentions his reason for this approach in an interview:

I think that’s very, very true. Energy is wasted by hiding, and what you are hiding gets worse and worse the more you hide it. It’s self-destructive. You know, sometimes when I talk about morality, I’ll just say, “I’m embarrassed about what I am saying, but in any case, I’m trying to present what the books teach as it’s written, and I’m not claiming that I can actually enact this, I want to be clear.” That makes it a lot easier to talk about it. If it’s compassion and the fact that I get angry in certain situations, then it’s easy for me to talk about what I get angry at and use that as an example. Being frank about myself undermines my own negative reactions.

To read more about this interesting interview about being a western Buddhist practitioner, click here.