Look at your own potential. Don't overestimate your capabilities and push too hard, or underestimate them and use that as an excuse to be lazy.

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

Develop confidence in your innate qualities and believe that these qualities will be brought to fruition.

One of the advantages of being born in an affluent society is that if one has any intelligence at all, one will realize that having more and more won't solve the problem, and happiness does not lie in possessions, or even relationships: The answer lies within ourselves. If we can't find peace and happiness there, it's not going to come from the outside.

The new nuns don't know that they're 'supposed' to be meek and submissive, and so in many ways they believe they can do anything, because they've seen the earlier ones do it. In this way, there's nothing for them to doubt.

I really don't know what I could teach and don't really plan to teach.

This is a time that calls for extreme restraint. In a world of outright aggression and violence there can be no winners. To respond to violence with counter-violence only throws oil on the fire.