Doing retreats, getting personal teachings from time to time from inspiring teachers, all of this helps to recharge our batteries. Then we get inspired and can carry what we've gained into our daily life, which is very important.

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.

In Dharma practice, the most important thing is to be very sincere.

We live in a society which is heading in one direction, so it's good to have at least a few friends who share the same values and can encourage us and help us to remember that we're not alone or peculiar, but that what we're doing is a very valid way of life. This will encourage us to put the Dharma at the centre of our life and not the periphery, to use our daily life as our Dharma practice.

We shouldn't be too naïve, or taken in by charisma.

There are other ways of benefiting than by being a recognized tulku and sitting on a throne.

My mother's love was really not based on attachment. Her love was genuine love. To make me happy, not how I will make her happy.