Western Tibetan Buddhists are always looking out there at the distant snow peaks and they lose the flowers along the path.

Even if the hermits do not appear to benefit other beings with their presence or teachings, still they are enormously inspiring to many. Perhaps, in this lifetime, they were meant to work on their own practice, to try to purify their own mindstream so that in future lifetimes (that will last a lot longer than this one), they will be fit vessels to give the teachings to others.

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.

I do think that someone who decides to devote themselves entirely to the spiritual life, that that is more meritorious.

To become effortless takes a lot of effort. It's good to compare it to learning an instrument or learning a sport.

Most of the people I talk to are not going to go off and live in a cave. Why should they? So I talk about how people can stop separating dharma practice - going on retreats, going to dharma centers, hearing talks, reading books - from their ordinary life.

To really be of benefit to others as the Buddha always taught, we ourselves must first get out of the swamp. One of the quickest and most effective ways to do this is in isolation, with very few distractions, working very hard at it and spending all your time and efforts at changing your mind.