There are other ways of benefiting than by being a recognized tulku and sitting on a throne.

My mother's love was really not based on attachment. Her love was genuine love. To make me happy, not how I will make her happy.

The first thing is to learn how to quiet the mind, relax the mind, and bring the awareness to the front so that we are conscious of what we're doing when we're doing it without all the commentary.

Let's consider: at the time of the Buddha, when he attained enlightenment, according to the old texts, in the first watch of the night, he went through all of his past lifetimes. Then in the second watch of the night, his mind opened still further and encompassed the coming into being and dying and re-coming into being of all beings, everywhere. The third watch of the night, he realized interdependent origination. He realized interdependent origination because he saw it. It wasn't some theory he thought up. He saw it. That was his enlightenment experience. That was why he was a Buddha.

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.

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

I don't know why I got reborn as a female. Maybe in my past life I had some sympathy or something for women, but I certainly wasn't a female last time.