When we have disorderly lives, it makes it difficult for our minds to be orderly and for us to be at ease with disorder.

I met Kaz in the mid 1980s when we invited him and other artists to the Ojai Foundation with Thich Nhat Hanh. I felt an instant connection with him, and since that time we have collaborated on many projects and have become good friends and allies in the work of nonviolence.

Buddhist practice is the grounding for this work, this life, this way.

In accepting death as inevitable, we don't label it as a good thing or a bad thing. As one of my teachers once said to me, “Death happens. It is just death, and how we meet it is up to us.

I am always cautious about naming the known, as we often forget to hold in regard those whose names will never be known to anyone outside of their close circle.

We live in a time when science is validating what humans have known throughout the ages: that compassion is not a luxury; it is a necessity for our well-being, resilience, and survival.

Don't ever think compassion is weak. Compassion is about strength.