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.

You have to recharge your batteries.

If you go to any nunnery and ask them what the main obstacle is, they'll always say low self-esteem and lack of confidence. It will take time. But the difference between the first girls from Ladakh who became nuns, to the girls we have now, is very encouraging.

When one has a decisive realization of the inherent nature of the mind, which has no ego, it has no sense of duality between oneself and the cup, and a deep sense of interpenetration of the whole dharma. Then whatever we do is spontaneously perfect Buddha activity. And anybody who is even slightly tuned in will get a very deep experience of that.

Joining the Sangha and renouncing worldly life is necessary in order to devote your whole life and all your energies toward the Dharma.

Obviously being relaxed doesn't mean that you make no effort.

Why do some people, when they want to practice, keep coming against problems and difficulties, and obstacles - inner obstacles and outer obstacles? It's because of the lack of merit.