In the moment when we are able to smile, to look at ourselves with compassion, our world begins to change.

We are looking for happiness and running after it in such a way that creates anger, fear and discrimination. So when you attend a retreat, you have a chance to look at the deep roots of this pollution of the collective energy that is unwholesome.

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow because even today I still arrive.

Deep listening helps us to recognize the existence of wrong perceptions in the other person and wrong perceptions in us.

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding.

May our heart's garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers.

In every country in the world, killing human beings is condemned. The Buddhist precept of non-killing extends even further, to include all living beings.