I think it would help if, when people are first ordained, they underwent a period of strict training, maybe for several years. During this time they would learn basic Buddhist philosophy in a monastic community where all the teaching and training was directed toward living a perfect monastic life and wasn't channeled out to fit into the lay life - which is what usually happens in Dharma centers where the teachings are directed toward how to live the Dharma in your everyday life.

As a human being, we have everything we need. It's enough suffering to give us incentive to go on, but not so much that we don't know where to turn.

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.

In a monastic setting, if someone doesn't want to obey the rules and just wants to live the way they've always lived as a lay person, then why did they become ordained? They have no sense that they have to give something up to gain so much.

Meditation is a way to take us to a deeper level of awareness.

This is a time that calls for extreme restraint. In a world of outright aggression and violence there can be no winners. To respond to violence with counter-violence only throws oil on the fire.

In one way I would like to teach, but I have no qualifications to teach Westerners.