I think we are very environmental people. We need to be supported environmentally. Books very much have that imprint on the mind.

I think there is a tendency for people to become more isolated as they move along a spiritual path. With more development, people get more isolated. Also, as they have more wealth, they get more isolated.

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."

If you rise with a positive attitude - because everything is possible, everything is doable - if you have that level of confidence, you exude it. It actually inspires the people around you.

It seems we all agree that training the body through exercise, diet, and relaxation is a good idea, but why don't we think about training our mind?

Shambhala can be relevant in terms of what is going on in the world.

A lot of people dabbling means Buddhism has come into the mainstream, where people begin to use these terms and ideas, and they become less foreign.