Hard times build determination and inner strength. Through them we can also come to appreciate the uselessness of anger. Instead of getting angry nurture a deep caring and respect for troublemakers because by creating such trying circumstances they provide us with invaluable opportunities to practice tolerance and patience.

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.

If the work is worthwhile, then whether we can complete it or not, it's worth making the attempt. That's why courage is important.

I have found a much greater appreciation of Buddhism because I couldn't take it for granted here in exile.

You use force, you create fear. Fear destroys trust. Trust is the basis of harmony. The hardliner believes harmony and unity can be brought by force. That's totally unscientific, totally wrong.

The three types of misery are the misery of suffering, the misery of change, and pervasive misery.

There is no way to escape death, it is just like trying to escape by four great mountains touching sky. There is no escape from these four mountains of birth, old age, sickness and death.