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.

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.

If we are going to live in a society, there has to be an attitude where people really do care for others.

Each of us holds human destiny in our hands. It will be completely determined by how the mind feels about itself.

Even when we speak of selflessness, the mind goes to "me." We think, "I'm selfless," but everything is selfless.

One of the characteristics of every great teacher I've known is tremendous exertion. It's interesting: You may see them as spiritual people or compassionate people, but the driving force is that incredible exertion - and their ability to sustain it.

If we do not appreciate the sensitivity and subtlety of the human heart, how can we appreciate the sensitivity and subtlety of the natural world?