Since I was a small child, I'd believed we were inherently perfect, and that we had to keep coming back again and again until we recognized our innate perfection.

Since I was a small child, I'd believed we were inherently perfect, and that we had to keep coming back again and again until we recognized our innate perfection.

If you become a monk because it's an easy life, because you're going to be fed, and sheltered and people will respect you, then that is not a very meritorious motivation.

Our pure awareness is not male or female.

I know many Catholic priests and nuns who use the Buddhist teachings to become better Catholics, and Jews who use them to become better Jews. Why not?! It just takes us towards more deeply recognizing our original nature, which is what we all share after all.

It's not a matter of how much you know or can define, or how many millions of mantras or thousands of prostrations you have done, or how many months of wangs you've attended. The important thing is whether or not the mind is really changing, whether our negative emotions are really coming under control, whether we are really beginning to understand ourselves, whether our mind is really improving, and whether in our hearts there is genuine love and caring for other people.

Our relative being is what rules our relative world.