I think the difference is that when we drink tea, we just drink tea. But if you're in the presence of a genuine master, they don't have to do anything but drink their tea, and yet it affects you at an incredibly profound level.

I sometimes feel tremendous compassion and helplessness.

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

You think you're enlightened. But as my lama said, when you realize the intrinsic nature of the mind, then you start to meditate. It's not the end, it's the beginning.

As a human being, we have everything we need. It's enough suffering to give us incentive to go on, but not so much that we don't know where to turn.

Buddha activity doesn't mean radiating light and elevating yourself up a thousand feet in the air. That's not the point. The point is, as Zen is always saying - and Tibetans understand this also very well - every activity becomes perfect Buddha activity.

Perhaps Westerners are in a better position to practice true renunciation than uneducated Orientals because most Western people, by the time they come to the Dharma, have led a pretty full worldly life with lots of sensual pleasures, money and lots of toys to play with. They have seen that the path of accumulation of worldly treasure does not lead to happiness or contentment. That's why they come to the Dharma.