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

Developing our capacity for compassion makes it possible for us to help others in a more skillful and effective way.

All are interconnected...the environment; rights of the dying; care of caregivers; education and medical care for peoples of the Himalayas; prison work; those living on the margins of society, particularly kids.

Many of us think that compassion drains us, but I promise you it is something that truly enlivens us.

Kaz came to Switzerland where I was teaching to share with me [Heart Sutra] wondrous insight. There he and I worked on this new translation - with my part being to help render it into a verse form that would be good to chant. Since I have worked with many dying people over the years and often share the Heart Sutra with them, I found this new version that we created together to be so much more accessible to those who were facing death.

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

Since we are already Buddhas, happy and suffering Buddhas, wise and confused Buddhas, we are already Buddha.