When we are using this term 'basic goodness,' we are talking about our inherent completeness.

When I was going into one of my first meditation retreats, I asked my father, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, for some advice. He said, "How you act when you're alone affects the rest of your life." Even in solitude, the ruler engages in virtue.

The self-assured strength that grows from knowing that we already have what we need makes us gentle, because we are no longer desperate.

When stress is the basic state of mind, even good things stress us out. We have to learn to let go.

Karma moves in two directions. If we act virtuously, the seed we plant will result in happiness. If we act non-virtuously, suffering results.

What is my great wish and intention, is to make a base of compassion and to encourage people to work to shift the energy.

If you decide to go on a Buddhist path, you have to be careful if you start mixing a lot of different traditions you are not totally familiar with - mixing this kind of meditation with that kind of practice or this kind of visualization with that kind of mantra. Then you really are concocting your own thing, and you have no idea what is going to happen.