Furthermore, I shall explain the nature of dharmata: Such a nature as this cannot be determined to be any one thing. So however you label it, that is how it appears.

Learning is the first step in making positive changes within yourself. Other factors are conviction, determination, action & effort. Learning & education help develop conviction about the need to change & increase your commitment. Conviction then develops into determination. Next, strong determination leads to action: a sustained effort to implement the changes. This final factor of effort is critical.

On a daily basis, you must take more care of your mind than just money, money, money!

Peace has a great deal to do with warm-heartednes s and respect for the lives of others, avoiding doing them harm and regarding their lives as being as precious as our own. If, on that basis, we can also be of help to others, so much the better.

To my mind, there are two things that, in life, you can do about death. Either you can choose to ignore it, in which case you may have some success in making the idea of it go away for a limited period of time, or you can confront the prospect of your own death and try to analyze it and, in so doing, try to minimize some of the inevitable suffering that it causes. Neither way can you actually overcome it.

Nothing comes into being without a cause and when all the conditions are created, there is nothing that can prevent the consequence.

Death and dying provide a meeting-point between the Tibetan Buddhist and modern scientific traditions. I believe both have a great deal to contribute to each other on the level of understanding and of practical benefit.