Likewise, education can direct people toward good or evil ends. When education is based on a fundamentally distorted worldview, the results are horrific.

People who are rooted in the here and now, who are not defeated by their limitations, who don’t compare themselves to others, who confidently advance along their chosen path-such people are happy, such people are truly great.

Knowledge itself is a neutral tool that can be used for good or evil. Wisdom, in contrast, always directs us toward happiness. The task of education must be to stimulate and unleash the wisdom that lies dormant in the lives of all young people. This is not a forced process, like pressing something into a preformed mold, but rather drawing out the potential which exists within.

In the past, human society provided encouragement and opportunity for people to extend support to each other, especially in highly stressful situations.

Ideal love is fostered only between two sincere, mature and independent people. Real love is not two people clinging to each other; it can only be fostered between two strong people secure in their individuality.

The idea of interdependence is central to Buddhism, which holds that all things come into being through the mutual interactions of various causes and conditions.

The wisdom and experience of older people is a resource of inestimable worth. Recognizing and treasuring the contributions of older people is essential to the long-term flourishing of any society.