When all is lost, when all is let go of, when all is abandoned, what you are left with is an ocean of bliss.

You're more responsible ethically for being there with your interconnection to the world, but the you now is an always changing one, and you're responsible for how you change it. It's very important to understand that whole thing about the ego.

Human beings are such social animals. We're very connected with the feelings of those we're close to, so we can't really be happy when the ones we are close to are unhappy.

Enlightenment is not meant to be an object of religious faith. It is an evolutionary goal, something we want to become.

I think humans will find their humanity sometime, somehow.

In Buddhist ideology, the conventional self is that which is constructed in a way by the use of the pronoun, and when you realize there is no absolute ego there, no disconnected one, self, or ego, then that actually strengthens your conventional ego. It does so in the sense that then you realize it's a construction, and you can strengthen it in order to help others, or do whatever you're trying to do, it's not like you no longer know who you are. Then you can organize your behavior by using your ego, as it's now the pronoun.

If someone gets a bigger house, does that automatically make them happy? Maybe for a second. But then they worry about the bigger house and how to take care of it.