I've always loved the Sangha. I have the deepest, deepest respect for them. I'm very sorry that in the West people don't appreciate what the monastic order is about.

Buddhism helps us to overcome our endless ego grasping mind to open up to something so much more spacious and genuinely meaningful.

Every country that meets Buddhism molds it into their own indigenous religion, as America will. A very clear example of this is Japan, which threw out almost all the dharma, and just kept that essence, which spoke to them.

Until time and space exist... I vow to come back for the benefit of other beings.

A realized being would not be making any fresh karma because karma is very much connected to the ego but would still be receiving the results of past karma.

We've been human countless times and done everything you can imagine. So we've been planting all these negative seeds, and they're going to come up.

In a monastic setting, if someone doesn't want to obey the rules and just wants to live the way they've always lived as a lay person, then why did they become ordained? They have no sense that they have to give something up to gain so much.