Buddhism is the most active one! The whole time, we're dealing with the mind and how to tame it, and how to transcend our ordinary conventional mind. This takes an enormous amount of determination and perseverance. It also requires an attitude of being relaxed and spacious, rather than tense and stressed. It's certainly not a matter of lying back and expecting it all to happen. If we don't make it happen, it won't!

Perhaps one of the main antidotes to depression, lack of self-esteem, loneliness and so forth is the recognition that we really do have Buddha nature. All the other problems like anger, jealousy, ambitions, are merely habitual patterns that we've learned, but aren't inherent to who we are.

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

The Buddha himself said, "I still use conceptual thinking, but I'm not formed by it." And that's the Buddha.

In the early '60s there was very little reliable information on Tibetan Buddhism. I was living in London and I had joined the Buddhist Society. For the most part, people there were either interested in Theravada or Zen Buddhism. There was almost no one into Tibetan Buddhism at that time.

I have made a vow to attain Enlightenment in the female form - no matter how many lifetimes it takes.

Look at your own potential. Don't overestimate your capabilities and push too hard, or underestimate them and use that as an excuse to be lazy.