There is an enormous joy and satisfaction in doing what you really want to do and are best fitted to do. When it all comes together like that, it gives you a wonderful sense of well-being and satisfaction knowing that you have been doing what you were intended to do for this lifetime.

When you learn an instrument, it takes an awful lot of time to just learn the scales, and then eventually when you have completely mastered the instrument, the music plays for you. But you still have to keep practicing. And it takes an awful lot of practice. Nonetheless, if you diligently practice, hours and hours and hours and hours, you probably won't get it. You'll probably just end up hurting your fingers.

The Tibetans are good at learning many skillful ways to show that everything we do becomes dharma practice, depending on which kind of approach we use.

A dog, however nice he is, and sweet-tempered, doesn't have much of a range of options. A human being does.

The new nuns don't know that they're 'supposed' to be meek and submissive, and so in many ways they believe they can do anything, because they've seen the earlier ones do it. In this way, there's nothing for them to doubt.

Because we're trying, because we want, it's very hard to get.

Every country that meets Buddhism molds it into their own indigenous religion, as America will. A very clear example of this is Japan, which threw out almost all the dharma, and just kept that essence, which spoke to them.