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.

I am working on a technical paper on compassion. So I am reading everything I can on the subject, including my own mind and heart.

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.

My test for veracity has always been: How this will settle with a person who is dying? Boundlessness seemed to me to open the door to the true nature of mind that is pointed to in the Heart Sutra.

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.

For me, Buddhism is a psychology and a philosophy that provides a means, upayas, for working with the mind.

The roots of all living things are tied together. Deep in the ground of being, they tangle and embrace. This understanding is expressed in the term nonduality. If we look deeply, we find that we do not have a separate self-identity, a self that does not include sun and wind, earth and water, creatures and plants, and one another.