There are certain teachers who shouldn't be teachers.

I think the difference is that when we drink tea, we just drink tea. But if you're in the presence of a genuine master, they don't have to do anything but drink their tea, and yet it affects you at an incredibly profound level.

There is a basic problem that a lot of Western monks and nuns become ordained without really understanding or appreciating what the monastic life is all about.

If we want to be musicians, dancers or sportspeople, we can download a certain amount and watch DVDs and read books, but in the end we need someone to assess us and give us personal instruction. The two go together.

It's important to lighten up a bit!

All the other religions I had ever read about dealt with the idea of God, and your relationship with God. Buddhism is the only religion that deals with man himself and the nature of the mind - how to deal with yourself and your condition, here and now, as opposed to having to deal with something outside yourself.

It's not a matter of how much you know or can define, or how many millions of mantras or thousands of prostrations you have done, or how many months of wangs you've attended. The important thing is whether or not the mind is really changing, whether our negative emotions are really coming under control, whether we are really beginning to understand ourselves, whether our mind is really improving, and whether in our hearts there is genuine love and caring for other people.