“One of the happier ironies of recent history is that even as Tibet is ...” — Pico Iyer Quote

One of the happier ironies of recent history is that even as Tibet is being wiped off the map in Tibet itself, here it is in California, in Switzerland, in Japan. All over the world, Tibetan Buddhism is now part of the neighborhood. In 1968, there were two Tibetan Buddhist centers in the West. By 2000, there were 40 in New York alone.

I think the world is always going to be as diverse as it always has been.

Travel for me is all about transformation, and I'm fascinated by those people who really do come back from a trip unrecognizable to themselves and perhaps open to the same possibilities they'd have written off not a month before.

A single Dallas Cowboys football game uses up as much electricity as the entire nation of Liberia in those same three hours - one reason the globe, if looked at from a certain height, is a cluster of lights surrounded by enormous patches of dark.

I think Buddhism should open the door of psychology and healing to penetrate more easily into the Western world.

Buddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by somekind of cosmic lawgiver.

I've always had these morals I've sort of put on myself: that excess is bad. I used to be into Buddhism and stuff. I was vegetarian. I was all about shutting things out.

Compassion is the key in Islam and Buddhism and Judaism and Christianity. They are profoundly similar.

The teachings of Tibetan Buddhism have been passed down for a long time now. They have that system pretty well figured out.