My books definitely are ambassadors, as you called them. They express what the vision is, what the purpose is.

When I ask people to contemplate selflessness, the sometimes react as if I've asked them to put their house on the market or give away all their money. If there was a self that existed in the way we think, discovering selflessness would be like putting our house on the market. But in the Buddhist tradition, the discovery of selflessness is called "completely joyful." It's not called "the raw end of the deal," or "I'd rather go back to bed," or "This is scary and depressing."

A lot of people do their practice. They meditate on compassion. Then they yell at people afterwards. That is not quite working. One of the things I try to emphasize is contemplative meditation - bringing your thought and intention into meditation.

Shambhala is a Buddhist tradition with its own unique view and approach.

We suffer because we want life to be different from what it is. We suffer because we try to make pleasurable what is painful, to make solid what is fluid, to make permanent what is always changing.

What distinguishes Shambhala is its intention of trying to create a society based upon certain principles. So, Shambhala's focus is not just on the individual, but on society as a whole.

I think Shambhala can be a very strong force as a social example of how you can try to live a life balanced in terms of both the spiritual and the secular.