The first thing I learned was that even if you have a lot of money and power and fame, you can still suffer very deeply.

Meditation can help us embrace our worries, our fear, our anger; and that is very healing. We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work.

Meditation is not meant to help us avoid problems or run away from difficulties. It is meant to allow positive healing to take place. To meditate is to learn how to stop—to stop being carried away by our regrets about the past, our anger or despair in the present, or our worries about the future.

Scientists tell us that we have enough technology to save our planet. . . . Yet we don't take advantage of this new technology. . . . The technological has to work hand-in-hand with the spiritual. Our spiritual life is the element that can bring about the energies of peace, calm, brotherhood, understanding, and compassion. Without that, our planet doesn't stand a chance.

Meditation is, first of all, a tool for surveying our territory so we can know what is going on. With the energy of mindfulness, we can calm things down, understand them, and bring harmony back to the conflicting elements inside us.

Often we tell ourselves, "Don't just sit there, do something!" But when we practice awareness, we discover that the opposite may be more helpful: "Don't just do something, sit there!"

When we change our daily lives - the way we think, speak and act - we change the world.