This is a time that calls for extreme restraint. In a world of outright aggression and violence there can be no winners. To respond to violence with counter-violence only throws oil on the fire.

First you have to help yourself.

If you're meeting with the dharma, you have probably been a human being before.

We do look for inspiration amongst our own sex. Why not? You go into temples and they're full of all the lineage lamas who are male. What message does that give to a young girl, except that somehow she got trapped in the wrong body because of bad things she did in a past life?

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.

The real spiritual power is enabling beings to realize the nature of the mind. That's the power of Buddha activity.

Buddhism helps us to overcome our endless ego grasping mind to open up to something so much more spacious and genuinely meaningful.