Ignorance, according to the Buddha, is our basic difficulty. Psychedelics and the process of aging make that clear to me all the time.

Service or giving is the other side of receiving. Giving and receiving is a full circle: a full circle feels more natural than a half circle.

Habitual caution ties and binds us; it is as if we were dressed always in clothes and shoes that were several sizes too small.

For many of us it is obvious that children are our ultimate investment, but unfortunately children are also the ultimate investment of the gun, tobacco and the liquor industries.

It is clear that our society can improve only if the next generation is given the chance, through loving and intelligent education, to be better developed than the present one.

The situation with children is not good in America, nor in other countries. It may be much worse in other countries. It is not just because of the lack of money. It is the lack of the awareness that children are very open, smart and knowing people when they are still very little. Afterwards they close down. Then they become like everyone and we have to work again to open up.

Our emotions are ever-changing and infinitely varied, but the words with which we describe them are fixed and rigid. Our life is like quicksilver, our vocabulary like steel. Sometimes a consummate poet succeeds in rendering the quality of life in words. For the rest of us, this is not possible.