Historically, the East was more concerned with understanding the mind and the West was more involved in understanding matter.

It is not enough to belong to a religion. You also have to put it into practice. Religion is like medicine. You have to ingest it to combat the illness.

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism that relates to the goddess Tārā. Following her cultivation of bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's motivation, she looked upon the situation of those striving towards full awakening and she felt that there were too few people who attained Buddhahood as women. So she vowed, 'I have developed bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lifetimes along the path I vow to be born as a woman, and in my final lifetime when I attain Buddhahood, then, too, I will be a woman.'

I don't want to convert people to Buddhism - all major religions, when understood properly, have the same potential for good.

Developing concern for others, thinking of them as part of us, brings self-confidence , reduces our sense of suspicion and mistrust, and enables us to develop a calm mind.

We need to find secular ways to cultivate warm-heartedness. We need secular ways to educate ourselves about inner values. The source of a happy life is within us. Trouble makers in many parts of the world are often quite well educated, so it is not just education that we need. We need to pay attention to inner values.