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

Some students went to Milarepa and said, we should stop living in caves and meditating because we should go out and help beings as bodhisattvas. And Milarepa said that as long as space exists, so long will there be beings for you to help.

If you're born in the higher realms, then it's too pleasant, and you don't have any incentive to practice. If you're born in the lower realms, you don't have any opportunity to practice.

We do look for inspiration amongst our own sex. Why not? You go into temples and they're full of all the lineage lamas who are male. What message does that give to a young girl, except that somehow she got trapped in the wrong body because of bad things she did in a past life?

The problem is that our inherent ignorance keeps us in samsara and unable to benefit ourselves and others on a really deep level.

We don't always need to be sitting at the foot of the teacher, but from time to time we need someone who can overview us and give us direction.

The Buddha himself said, "I still use conceptual thinking, but I'm not formed by it." And that's the Buddha.