If you see life as an opportunity, or if you see helping others as an opportunity, then all of a sudden you become joyous. You want to go forward.

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.

Shambhala is a tradition where there were rulers, kings, and powerful people who actually were very benevolent and kind. They got things done, and they didn't abandon their tradition.

Our mind is always subject to being distracted by thoughts of what happened in the past and ideas of what could happen in the future, but the living experience is what is happening NOW.

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

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.

A lot of people talk about the spirituality of Buddhism, and it is a spiritual discipline. But in Shambhala there also is a notion that you have to be synchronized with both heaven and earth.