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.

The real spiritual power is enabling beings to realize the nature of the mind. That's the power of Buddha activity.

For any practice to work, the mind which is meditating on the object must merge. Often they are facing each other. One has to become completely absorbed, then the transformation will occur.

To be completely enlightened means that you're a Buddha.I don't speak of enlightenment.

We're not making up merit scores for ourselves. We're making up merit scores so that we can be reborn in a situation where we can really live to benefit ourselves and others.

In our endless past lives, we've all done everything, you name it, we've done it. Good, bad, intermediate.

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.