People now have their own particular religion - a denomination of one. I suppose it's a part of the new age phenomenon, but it's much wider than that. On the whole, I would say that is healthy. But I think it was always there, secretly.

One of the effects of religions getting together is that they borrow from one another. An example is the growing number of Catholics who are practicing Yoga and meditation techniques borrowed from Buddhism and Hinduism. So there are these borrowings which I think fertilize the religions.

Life is very difficult and we owe it to our fellow human beings to be as cheerful as we can.

I don't regard fundamentalism in the United States or in Europe as a terrible threat, partly because it is a self-curing disease. The younger generation drifts away, so fundamentalists always have to recruit to keep up with themselves.

I think the Buddhist ethic is clearer and more systematic in some ways. The Buddhist notion is that our chief problems are greed, hatred and delusion. Well, delusion is not much mentioned in the Christian tradition. In the West, we have underplayed the idea that our moral and spiritual troubles have to do with a lack of clarity or insight because original sin has dominated so much of our thinking. We tend to think that our troubles are caused by insufficient will power.

People now have their own particular religion - a denomination of one. I suppose it's a part of the new age phenomenon, but it's much wider than that. On the whole, I would say that is healthy. But I think it was always there, secretly.

Tolerance has been a very important feature of Christianity from its very roots, despite all the other things that have gone on since. And that, I think, must be the global perspective. Tolerance implies more than saying, "Well, let the Muslims go on with what they are doing." It also means trying to learn something from them and adding that to your own tradition. That is the attitude I think needs to inform the global citizen of the future.