At the age of 21 I was so sensible and became a nun. I am very grateful to myself for that.

Basically, I want to spend my time in retreat, but to my own amazement, I agreed to help with a project to start a training center for nuns. I agreed because I think it's really very important for the Western Sangha. I don't know how I'm going to help, but it's important.

When I was in retreat I just did my meditation sessions and, in-between, reading and things I had to do.

We make the commitment to stop for a moment and look at what the mind is doing, what mind state we are dwelling in. We don't judge it, we just know it. Gradually we'll become more and more accustomed to being conscious of what we're thinking and our various positive and negative states. We'll become more and more the masters of our mind, rather than the slaves.

I do think that someone who decides to devote themselves entirely to the spiritual life, that that is more meritorious.

Once one has understand what is Buddhadharma, what is not Buddhadharma, and once one has had enough view to see the different approaches, then it's important to really look at what speaks to one's heart.

We have to transform those ordinary actions of our day into dharma practice because otherwise nothing is going to move.