This precious life is our opportunity. We are not the millions and millions of other things that are not human.

We need to be sincere in our practice, but at the same time we can't take ourselves too seriously.

A lot of people with the purest motivation end up getting completely burned out. And that's because they lack the wisdom and the skill and the inner space.

Either we're aware and present, or we're not. There is no half way.

If we could turn around and stand back, then we would see the whole complete pattern. And therefore what we have to do in this lifetime is to perfect this pattern, so that it will continue a most beautiful pattern next time and next time and next time and next time because we vowed until samsara is empty! Now, that's going to be a long time, so you'd better get prepared for the long haul, and the best way to do that is to really prepare yourself as much as possible in this lifetime, and not waste your opportunities so that we can genuinely benefit beings, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly.

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

There are many wonderfully qualified teachers out there, but that doesn't mean that each teacher is suitable to the same person, anymore than people fall in love with the same person.