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.

I remember having a discussion with [Kaz] about his translation of the word shunyata as "boundlessness," instead of the more traditional "emptiness." I said: "Kaz, everyone is used to the word emptiness for shunyata. This might not sit well with people. He said: "Translator's prerogative!" Then he added, "One cannot assume we know what they meant...." I agreed.

We in the "developed" world seem to have many auditory strategies that insulate us from the presence of silence, simplicity, and solitude. When I return to Western culture after time in desert, mountain or forest, I discover how we have filled our world with a multiplicity of noises, a symphony of forgetfulness that keeps our won thoughts and realizations, feelings and intuitions out of audible range.

Compassion has enemies, and those enemies are things like pity, moral outrage, fear.

We believe that it takes a strong back and a soft front to face the world.

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

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.