The goal of meditation is precisely to make your mind smooth and manageable so that it can be concentrated or relaxed at will; and especially to free it from the tyranny of mental afflictions and confusion

What counts is not the enormity of the task, but the size of the courage.

We must distinguish between spirituality in general terms, which aims to make us better people, and religion. Adopting a religion remains optional, but becoming a better human being is essential.

[Some of the people I'd met] were wonderful people as human beings, and some people were more difficult. I could not see a correlation between their particular genius in playing chess and music and mathematics, etc. ... with human qualities. Some were really good, wonderful people, and some were difficult characters, but there was no clear correlation. But when I met some spiritual masters, [I thought that] there had to be a correlation, and it turned out to be true.

Wisdom and compassion should become the dominating influences that guide our thoughts , our words, and our actions.

I don't often get into a bad mood, since it does not help anything and clouds my judgment, but I can certainly see that sometimes things go terribly wrong. We need to understand the reasons for this and work towards building new conditions that will bring about better circumstances.

Genuine fearlessness arises with the confidence that we will be able to gather the inner resources to deal with any situation that comes our way.