Realization is wonderful, but you have to expand it until there's not a single defilement left in the mind and the mind is completely open and spacious. Even in that condition, you still use the relative mind. You use them both.

In the beginning especially, we won't realize we're changing.

I remember asking my mother if she believed in reincarnation and she said that that sounded very sensible, and I thought, yes, it does to me too. So I always believed in it. I can't remember when I didn't.

Just entering into the dharma and taking refuge and bodhisattva vows is a tremendous amount of merit, but we need more and more and more.

I don't think I've changed anything, but I hope that by my talks I have encouraged people in their practice. That's as much as any of us can do.

Still all the tulkus being born are men.

We have to know what is Buddhadharma and what is not Buddhadharma. It needn't go on forever. You don't have to spend 18 years at it. But still, a basic and uncompromised understanding of Buddhist principles is important. Very basic: the three signs of being, the four noble rruths, karma, and so on.