Every country that meets Buddhism molds it into their own indigenous religion, as America will. A very clear example of this is Japan, which threw out almost all the dharma, and just kept that essence, which spoke to them.

Keep your practice very simple and don't be too ambitious.

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

My mother was a spiritualist. We had weekly séances at our house with a neighbor who was a medium and various friends, and so I was brought up with the idea that there are many realms of being all around us. So that prepared me for Buddhism, and especially Tibetan Buddhism with all its talk of different realms and dimensions of being.

One of the advantages of being born in an affluent society is that if one has any intelligence at all, one will realize that having more and more won't solve the problem, and happiness does not lie in possessions, or even relationships: The answer lies within ourselves. If we can't find peace and happiness there, it's not going to come from the outside.

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?

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.