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.

If you put a little pin in the middle and you make a little space, a little circle, then the nature of the mirror shines through. So now you know the mind is not dust, that behind that dust there is this mirror-like nature of the mind, and if it's a big enough hole, you might be so transfixed by the hole you don't notice the rest of the dust.

The first thing is to learn how to quiet the mind, relax the mind, and bring the awareness to the front so that we are conscious of what we're doing when we're doing it without all the commentary.

When we read history we find that in all ages people have thought, this is the dark age.

To become effortless takes a lot of effort. It's good to compare it to learning an instrument or learning a sport.

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.

It's interesting that in those countries like Taiwan or Korea, where nuns are given equal opportunities for study and practice, they also develop great social awareness.