If you want to be a doctor, you may say, There are all these beings, they're sick, they're dying, I've got to go out and help them. And so you grab a bag full of scalpels and medicine and rush off. Even though your motivation is very pure, you end up harming beings because you don't know what you're doing.

One thing in the Buddhadharma is that we are not our body, we are not our gender.

There is an enormous joy and satisfaction in doing what you really want to do and are best fitted to do. When it all comes together like that, it gives you a wonderful sense of well-being and satisfaction knowing that you have been doing what you were intended to do for this lifetime.

I think to dwell continually on the dark side creates gloom and despair and anger and hatred, and that just adds to the darkness. So rather than that, we need to think of the beauty in the world, and also send out love and compassion to all beings in this world. Not just the people we like, but people who we find difficult. Because they are very deeply in need of compassion.

From the point of view of the relative world, merit is very important.

Why do some people, when they want to practice, keep coming against problems and difficulties, and obstacles - inner obstacles and outer obstacles? It's because of the lack of merit.

If you don't find that people find you're easier to live with than you were before, if you don't find that your heart is feeling warmer toward others and if your negative emotions are not getting any better, then there's something wrong. That is always the touchstone of the Dharma practice.