Our thinking can create liberation or it can create imprisonment. It depends on how we use our mind.

The purpose of dharma is to help your mind to expand, to grow, to clarify. It should uphold us and create an inner sense of peace, joy, and clarity.

We are educated. We can think. We have the freedom to think.

If you see young tulkus when they're with other little monks, it's like in a Broadway show or something where the main character is spotlighted and the others kind of fade into the background. And you think, who is that tulku? Because that's all you see, even though they're all dressed the same and they're all the same age, but it's like the tulku is illumined. They don't look like the other ones.

A dog, however nice he is, and sweet-tempered, doesn't have much of a range of options. A human being does.

From a Buddhist point of view, the first thing to help is yourself, to get your own mind together. And to really understand how to benefit beings, not just on the physical level, but on all levels. Then there are endless beings you can benefit.

Ultimately there is light and love and intelligence in this universe. And we are it, we carry that within us, it’s not just something out there, it is within us and this is what we are trying to re-connect with, our original light and love and intelligence, which is who we are, so do not get so distracted by all this other stuff, you know, really remember what we are here on this planet for.