What matters is that you meditate, you're seeking enlightenment, you're on the pathway to enlightenment, and you're having fun. Don't look for reassurance in the eyes of others. Look for reassurance in your own eyes. Only you know if Buddhist practice is improving the quality of your life.

Learn to meditate, practice and don't get frustrated. It will take you years to learn to meditate perfectly. Every time you try, you are growing. It's not as if you have to meditate perfectly to make progress.

Reading books about enlightenment does not make you enlightened at all. You have to meditate yourself.

What you gain in internal knowledge goes from one lifetime to another. It is not wasted. Unlike those stone edifices that will fade, your internal knowledge will stay with you from one incarnation to another.

If you hold a negative thought, then it will become more powerful and not only will it send bad energy to the person, but it will crash your consciousness. All the hard work of meditating is sabotaged.

I think perhaps the greatest book ever written was Ulysses by James Joyce.

What is gone before is gone. All you have now are the results of your actions.