The saying "no self, no problem" probably comes from Zen. In their cultures, where Buddhism is kind of taken for granted, as well as karma, causality, former and future life, and the possibility for becoming enlightened, then it's safe to skirt the danger of nihilism, which would be, I don't exist because Buddha said I have no self, and therefore I have no problem because I don't exist. That would be a bad misunderstanding. But in those cultures, it would not be as easy to have that understanding as it would be here in the west, where we really are nihilistic.

The tradition of nonviolence, optimism, concern for the individual, and unconditional compassion that developed in Tibet is the culmination of a slow inner revolution, a cool one, hard to see, that began 2,500 years ago with the Buddha's insight about the end of suffering. What I have learned from these people has forever changed my life, and I believe their culture contains an inner science particularly relevant to the difficult time in which we live.

All the things you need in the death transition, you need now in the life transition, because life is a transition, it is a between state. Therefore, every night when you fall asleep, it's like you die. And every time you do, you should be using the process of falling asleep as giving up your attention to sense objects, your discursive ruminating thoughts and so on. You should use that as a process of giving up and giving yourself completely to the universe and becoming completely obliterated.

Live fully each day to the full . . .

You take up energy towards someone because you think loving your enemy doesn't just mean caving into your enemy. It means first of all liberating yourself.

Buddhism is all about science. If science is the systematic pursuit of the accurate knowledge of reality, then science is Buddhism, Buddhism is science.

The worldly person is insane from the point of view of the spiritual person.