I'd say look at the teacher's students. Do you want to be like them? If you see a good and harmonious sangha, and if they're practicing well and are good people with good hearts, then you have a cause for trust.

If you want to be a doctor, you may say, There are all these beings, they're sick, they're dying, I've got to go out and help them. And so you grab a bag full of scalpels and medicine and rush off. Even though your motivation is very pure, you end up harming beings because you don't know what you're doing.

To be enlightened doesn't mean you end up stupefied and unable to function.

When I look back I feel very grateful.

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.

A lot of people with the purest motivation end up getting completely burned out. And that's because they lack the wisdom and the skill and the inner space.

The nature of the mind is completely incredible.