If you've made a lot of negative seeds, and not a lot of positive seeds, even though you meet with the dharma, you're going to have problems.

If we want to be musicians, dancers or sportspeople, we can download a certain amount and watch DVDs and read books, but in the end we need someone to assess us and give us personal instruction. The two go together.

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

For so many centuries women have been suppressed and regarded as inferior. And that of course is not right at all, that we all have buddha-nature - so what's the difference?

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

There is a basic problem that a lot of Western monks and nuns become ordained without really understanding or appreciating what the monastic life is all about.

A realized being would not be making any fresh karma because karma is very much connected to the ego but would still be receiving the results of past karma.