We humans think we are smart, but an orchid, for example, knows how to produce noble, symmetrical flowers, and a snail knows how to make a beautiful, well-proportioned shell. Compared with their knowledge, ours is not worth much at all. We should bow deeply before the orchid and the snail and join our palms reverently before the monarch butterfly and the magnolia tree. The feeling of respect for all species will help us recognize the noblest nature in ourselves.

All violence is injustice. Responding to violence with violence is injustice, not only to the other person but also to oneself. Responding to violence with violence resolves nothing; it only escalates violence, anger and hatred. It is only with compassion that we can embrace and disintegrate violence. This is true in relationships between individuals as well as in relationships between nations.

If you have a friend who suffers, you have to help him.«My dear friend, you are on safe ground. Everything is okay now. Why do you continue to suffer? Don't go back to the past. It's only a ghost; it's unreal». And whenever we recognize that these are only movies and pictures, not reality, we are free. That is the practice of mindfulness.

Civilisations have been destroyed many times, and this civilisation is no different. It can be destroyed. We can think of time in terms of millions of years and life will resume little by little. The cosmos operates for us very urgently, but geological time is different.

If you realize that the other person is a human being too, and you have exactly the same kind of spiritual path, and then the two can become good practitioners. This appears to be practical for both.

Real peace is not in power, money, or weapons, but in deep inner peace.

The most important thing is that we need to be understood. We need someone to be able to listen to us and to understand us. Then we will suffer less.