For me the first great joy of traveling is simply the luxury of leaving all my beliefs and certainties at home, and seeing everything I thought I knew in a different light, and from a crooked angle.

What is fascinating about a place like Los Angeles airport is that it is lots and lots of people, many of whom have saved up all their lives and channeled all of their energies toward coming to the promised land of abundance and plenty - the American Dream. But as soon as they arrive here they get a crash course in the American reality.

In a world full of shifting borders, everything is happening all at once in every possible direction.

It so often happens that somebody says 'change your life' and you repaint your car rather than re-wire the engine.

I think of the Dalai Lama as a doctor of the mind offering medicine and specific counsel and cures in the way a great doctor would.

Gandhi or Bishop Tutu or the Dalai Lama. I think they're really embodiments of what we aspire to and, by keeping them in our heads, we're reminding ourselves of who we could be. That's what we're hoping to climb up towards.

The Dalai Lama says Tibet and the modern world can engage in a conversation; perhaps Tibet has something to share with the rest of us based on its researches into mind, and we have a lot that we can share with Tibet.