For me, language and how I use it are very important. I held back on doing a poetry book, walking the fine line between trying to be helpful and just putting more junk out there.

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 does have unique teachings, as do many Buddhist traditions. For example, certain teachings within Shambhala have to do with raising the personal windhorse, or the energy of the individual, so a person has good fortitude to be able to live a good life.

Your life and your practice should not be separate. You bring your practice into experience. You bring it about.

Initially, you have to live a period where you are developing your attitude. I would consider that a meditation: determining what you want to do. You have a period where you meditate and you get the strength.

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

Our power comes not from suppressing others but from uplifting them.