While there I began to study the Asian religions as theories of mind.

Every morning, I go off to a small studio behind my house to write. I try to ignore all email and phone calls until lunchtime. Then I launch into the sometimes frantic busy-ness of a tightly scheduled day.

Making choices that improve things for all of us on the planet is an act of compassion, a simple act we can do any time we go shopping.

Western business people often don't get the importance of establishing human relationships.

Societies can be sunk by the weight of buried ugliness.

A prerequisite to empathy is simply paying attention to the person in pain.

There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse. It is the root of all emotional self-control, since all emotions, by their very nature, lead to one or another impulse to act. The root meaning of the word emotion, remember, is "to move.