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.

Yes, creation is moving toward us; life is moving toward us all the time. We back away, but it keeps pushing toward us. Why not step forward and greet it.

When we walk slowly, the world can fully appear. Not only are the creatures not frightened away by our haste or aggression, but the fine detail of fern and flower, or devastation and disruption, becomes visible. Many of us hurry along because we do not want to see what is really going on in and around us. We are afraid to let our senses touch the body of suffering or the body of beauty

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'm inspired by ] courageous young people who take a stand and go into the field to serve; really old people who see that every minute of life is to be lived fully and compassionately; and so many between this world and that world.

In being with dying, we arrive at a natural crucible of what it means to love and be loved. And we can ask ourselves this: Knowing that death is inevitable, what is most precious today?

When I first was exposed to Buddhism in the mid-1960s, I said it was so practical and utterly pragmatic. That's what attracted me to Buddhism.