"I was absent-minded partly because I was young, but I also realized that the cause of absent-mindedness was self-centeredness. Knowing this, I trained myself to always try to put others before myself. Whenever I met another person, I would think, 'what can I offer this person?' For me, the 'letting go ' of the self, in practice, became offering myself. I combined this with advice from Shifu to 'use the body like a rag; use your mind like a mirror.'"
From the chapter Clouds and Water - by Jimmy Yu
"I had plenty of questions and doubts about which rules, vows, precepts, and worldviews -- like beliefs in reincarnation, other worlds, invisible beings, the lower realms -- made sense and were worth adopting. The Dalai Lama encouraged me to ask these questions and explore Buddhism. He said that Buddhism would reveal itself."
From the chapter The Long and Winding Road - by Lama Surya Das
