I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.

The Biblical text does not have punctuation marks like periods and question marks. Where we end sentences is a matter of interpretation.

I may be a descendant of Seth. I say to myself, What does [the story of Cain and Abel] teach me? So I go back to all the interpretations in the Talmud, which to me are a source of pleasure and joy. Then I say, maybe this story is not for then; maybe it's for now! It's possible for brothers to kill one another in civil wars. But most important, whoever kills, kills his brother. That's a moral conclusion that may not be there; but that must be my conclusion. Otherwise, why read it? Whoever kills, kills his brother.

The whole community must be saved [in Tibet].

When our center is strong, everything else is secondary.

[My approach to the Bible, history does really matter.] Everything matters. But I have priorities. For instance, for me to know whether there were two Isaiahs or one is less important than the text itself. Of course I read the arguments for and against. But it's not my task in life to say there were two or three authors of Isaiah's book, or how many authors there were of Deuteronomy. This is not what I'm doing.

I'm not a political person. I usually beware of political persons. I know many, but I'm not one of them. I have no political ambitions.