My mother was a spiritualist. We had weekly séances at our house with a neighbor who was a medium and various friends, and so I was brought up with the idea that there are many realms of being all around us. So that prepared me for Buddhism, and especially Tibetan Buddhism with all its talk of different realms and dimensions of being.

A dog, however nice he is, and sweet-tempered, doesn't have much of a range of options. A human being does.

Ultimately there is light and love and intelligence in this universe. And we are it, we carry that within us, it’s not just something out there, it is within us and this is what we are trying to re-connect with, our original light and love and intelligence, which is who we are, so do not get so distracted by all this other stuff, you know, really remember what we are here on this planet for.

If you've made a lot of negative seeds, and not a lot of positive seeds, even though you meet with the dharma, you're going to have problems.

The world is full of incredible people who are embodiments of compassion. Some of them have a spiritual path; some of them don't.

We're not lowly sinners, we're not worthless beings. We are something jewel-like and beautiful.

Women are fully capable of doing everything.