If we greet situations with a positive attitude, we will eventually create positive returns. If we respond with a negative attitude, negative things will eventually come our way.

We need to be sincere in our practice, but at the same time we can't take ourselves too seriously.

Learn not to be too ambitious; not to expect if you have a 9-to-5 job and three kids, that you're likely to get buddhahood in one lifetime.

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 don't want to go to heaven. We want to be reborn so that we can keep going and realize the dharma so we can benefit other beings, endlessly. It's a very different thing.

We have compassion because of the incredible pain and suffering which we as unenlightened beings cause to ourselves and all others through our ignorance. This is why we're trying to get out. This is why the bodhisattva has meaning. Because we're saying, no we won't get out, we won't escape until we've helped all other beings to escape, but most other beings don't even want to escape. They don't even know that there is an escape, and it's hard, so it's going to take an awfully long time.

It's important to lighten up a bit!