We're not making up merit scores for ourselves. We're making up merit scores so that we can be reborn in a situation where we can really live to benefit ourselves and others.

One of the beauties of the Buddhadharma is there are so many approaches, and not everything is right for everybody.

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!

Sometimes people come and they have so much pain and confusion in their eyes... what to do? A few words is a little bit of balm but doesn't really solve the deep disease within.

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.

I've often said that the seventh paramita should be a sense of humor, so we don't take ourselves too seriously.

I do think that someone who decides to devote themselves entirely to the spiritual life, that that is more meritorious.