For so many centuries women have been suppressed and regarded as inferior. And that of course is not right at all, that we all have buddha-nature - so what's the difference?

As a human being, we have everything we need. It's enough suffering to give us incentive to go on, but not so much that we don't know where to turn.

The Tibetans are good at learning many skillful ways to show that everything we do becomes dharma practice, depending on which kind of approach we use.

At one time I thought that if I could really understand renunciation and bodhichitta from the depths of my heart, then, for this lifetime that would be enough.

When one has a decisive realization of the inherent nature of the mind, which has no ego, it has no sense of duality between oneself and the cup, and a deep sense of interpenetration of the whole dharma. Then whatever we do is spontaneously perfect Buddha activity. And anybody who is even slightly tuned in will get a very deep experience of that.

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.

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.