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

My mother was a spiritualist. We had weekly séances at our house with a neighbor who was a medium and various friends, and so I was brought up with the idea that there are many realms of being all around us. So that prepared me for Buddhism, and especially Tibetan Buddhism with all its talk of different realms and dimensions of being.

In India many people come to discuss things with me. I sometimes say that half of them come saying, "I have a problem, I want to find a teacher." The other half say, "I have a problem because I have a teacher!" So it's not so simple.

It's unlikely that you were a frog in a past life.

In one way I would like to teach, but I have no qualifications to teach Westerners.

In a monastic setting, if someone doesn't want to obey the rules and just wants to live the way they've always lived as a lay person, then why did they become ordained? They have no sense that they have to give something up to gain so much.

The world is full of incredible people who are embodiments of compassion. Some of them have a spiritual path; some of them don't.