Sometimes people come and they have so much pain and confusion in their eyes... what to do? A few words is a little bit of balm but doesn't really solve the deep disease within.

If you lose interest in the dharma, then you might be reborn in a place where you are unlikely to meet with the dharma. And then you're completely off the path.

We have produced many of our problems through our confused mental states.

We live in a society which is heading in one direction, so it's good to have at least a few friends who share the same values and can encourage us and help us to remember that we're not alone or peculiar, but that what we're doing is a very valid way of life. This will encourage us to put the Dharma at the centre of our life and not the periphery, to use our daily life as our Dharma practice.

All of the external circumstances and the rude and difficult people we meet, instead of getting angry, upset, or frustrated, we see that we can take them all and use them on the path in a way that actually invigorates and strengthens us, rather than defeats us. It's all very practical advice, and that's why I talk a lot about how to make our daily life into Dharma practice, otherwise it's easy to feel hopeless and helpless.

There are wars, there's pestilence, there are plagues, there is corruption in religious circles, corruption in the government, when was it not?

We're always given the message that our potential is so limited, which is so sad. Actually, our potential is infinite.