CA: How did you develop an interest in the practice of meditation?

GKL: I was at a point in my life where I was worrying continuously. I was living in England and working at a stressful job. I never felt rested because I was always anxious. I met someone at work who was in a meditation group, and she intrigued me because she was a colorful character. I had a habit of worrying about what I had done and what I hadn't done. I had knots in my stomach, and I was unable to find mental peace. Then I went with her to a public talk about meditation.

The talk hit me like a sledgehammer between the eyes. I don't think I knew what Buddhism was until then. I was raised in the Church of England and I went to a Catholic school. I think what hit me so powerfully at this talk was that I realized that I didn't need to stay the way I was. Although that was a relief, I still didn't have the tools for changing. I went away from the meeting with the sensation that meditation could teach me how to change and show me how to react to things.

I continued to go to that group, and I knew that something had touched me very deeply. Gradually I got more involved and went to their intensive study programs and retreats. I also attended teachings at retreats at the Mother center in Cumbria. Two years later, I was asked to help run the center in London, which was exactly what I wanted to do.

Four years later I got ordained, and a year after that, my teacher, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, the author of all the books I've studied from, asked me to teach in Santa Barbara, and then in Los Angeles one year later at the Khandakapala Buddhist Center.

CA: Can you explain the kind of meditation that you practice?

GKL: I've only studied the Buddhist tradition. There are many types of meditation, but the purpose of Buddhist meditation is to make our minds peaceful. Pacifying the mind is step one. When our mind is peaceful we are free from anxiety and worry, and we have a lot more clarity to solve problems. That is a basic effect that comes from learning to still the mind.

The ultimate purpose of meditation is to eliminate our negative habits, such as anger and jealousy. Meditation gives us the tools to develop positive states of mind, and it is essential for all aspects of our life, because without mental peace we can't experience lasting happiness. In certain Western societies, we have no time to control our minds, we just react, because life is so busy. We try to control the external world, and that makes us even more unhappy. That's why our relationships become problematic, even though our material comforts increase.

CA: Why are relationships falling apart? And how can meditation help people work out the problems?

GKL: The reason that relationships go wrong is because we develop minds that we describe as anger, attachment, jealousy, as well as good minds, such as love and consideration. Unless we train in reducing our negative minds, we tend to relax, and when we relax it is easy to let ourselves become negative. When we spend a long time with one person, we start acting in selfish and negative ways. We want our relationships to improve, but we tend to increase our selfishness as time passes. We focus on what makes us happy, and that causes the relationship to degenerate. Both parties tend to focus on themselves.

Meditation trains us to understand positive, virtuous states of mind that we need for good harmonious relationships. It trains us in increasing the mind's true love, without attachment, and teaches us how to maintain a patient mind. We learn to increase consideration by developing affection and appreciation. These are feelings that we have naturally, at the beginning of the relationships, but then we forget about them and focus on the other person's faults. We get irritable, angry, and disappointed, and we think the other person has changed. Meditation teaches us how to train ourselves to use that relationship to increase our good qualities, and not to further ingrain negative bad habits, such as selfishness, anger, and annoyance.

CA: Since meditation can help us to work out problems in our personal relationships, can it also help on a global level?

GKL: You can use the slogan of the World Wildlife Fund, that said ''Think globally, act locally.'' This is what we should do with our life. We want to train to be able to relate positively to every living being, but we need to train with those we live and work with in order to do that. Often in meditation we will develop a profound wish for all living beings to be happy, and then we will get angry at our partner - which contradicts what we've been wishing for. We need to make our meditation very practical and apply it immediately to our everyday situations.

CA: How can we apply what we learn from meditation in our daily lives?

GKL: We might meditate on increasing our love, and when we finish the meditation we maintain the feeling we developed in that meditation and we actually use that feeling to help us with our relationships in our daily life. In his book Introduction to Buddhism, Geshe Kelsang says that meditation is a method of acquainting the mind with virtue. In order to do this, we need to stop distraction and make our minds clearer and more lucid. We can do this by settling our concentration on our breath and learning how to still the mind. After the mind is stilled, we have the perfect mental environment for changing our mind to a positive state. It's like putting your mind in neutral before changing gear.

There are two types of meditation that we use in Buddhism. The first is analytical meditation, the second is called placement meditation.

In analytical meditation, we first will meditate on a virtuous state of mind, and contemplate what that mind is. The mind is love, which is wishing others to be happy. Through analytical contemplation, we understand the virtuous mind, and we develop a wish to increase it in our lives.

Then we concentrate for as long as possible on this understanding of the virtuous state of mind. We become very familiar with it, and it mixes with our mind, like a strong decision, and we are practicing placement meditation. This is how our mind will change. When we rise from this meditation, we have a very strong feeling or memory called the ''mind of love.'' We can use that throughout the day with everyone we meet. We can try to gain an actual experience of it with our friends, family, and colleagues.

CA: How much interest do you feel that Americans have in learning to meditate?

GKL: There's a lot of interest in meditation, but I don't think most Americans realize how powerful it could be in their lives. It can transform our problems, because we don't need problems. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso writes in Understanding the Mind that ''there is no situation that has the power to disturb our mind, unless we respond with delusion.'' Buddha shows us how our happiness and our suffering depend on our minds. We can choose how to control our minds.

Once we are certain that we are motivated to really benefit others, without self-concern, then we can help more effectively. But a lot of the time we have some good intentions, but they are mixed with selfishness and pride, and this leads us to make mistakes. When we are training in meditation, we cultivate minds that really care for others. Because of this, we naturally want to help, whether this is in small ways of helping friends or neighbors, or in making larger statements. We lose our fear, and become more confident in being able to help others. We're not so bogged down by our own problems.

CA: What is the difference between the state of flow in creative life, and the mental state we are in when we meditate?

GKL: I used to be an artist, and I think the process can be similar or diametrically opposed! A creative flow of adrenaline could be a similar experience to having a blissful state of mind. I think the difference is that when you rise from meditation, you develop some wisdom from it, and you can use that wisdom. After I finished painting, there was almost a down - an anticlimax - and I didn't feel particularly changed from the process. I began craving another creative high. Some people may develop virtuous minds and insight, but I think I was developing delusion. I was painting from pain. I made the delusion deeper - or whatever was stimulating my creativity.

The purpose of meditation is about inner improvement, not external improvement. The goal is to become a realized, beneficial being so that you can help more people. Anger feels very strong and ingrained, but it is an easier delusion to eliminate than many. People who are angry can feel how painful it is, whereas other delusions may feel nice. We have emotions like attachment that we don't want to recognize as delusions. We confuse attachment with love.

CA: How would you define the difference?

GKL: Love is wishing for others to be happy. Attachment is wishing for others to make you happy. It's very deeply engrained in all of us. Attachment is cultivated in us, and we crave more and more, in relationships and in everything else. The movie industry describes attachment as being the ultimate goal, rather than love.

We confuse pride and confidence. Pride exaggerates any slight good qualities or talents that we have; confidence is simply knowing that something is true. When we have pride, we are vulnerable. It's like a balloon. If someone criticizes us, we experience a lack of self-esteem. If we have attachment in our relationship it will swing to anger; if we have pride, it will swing to loss of self-esteem.

CA: Can you tell me about the Khandhakapala Buddhist Center in Los Angeles?

GKL: We are just about to move from a small residential center to a larger Temple in Elysian Valley. We have nearly completed buying an old church. We are very excited, as now we will be able to offer much larger workshops, retreats, and meditation classes. We hope the Temple will be more accessible to more people, giving those interested in meditation a place just to learn the simple techniques of quieting the mind. We will also offer more in-depth study programs for those wishing to study and understand Buddha's teachings in more depth.

The study programs we offer give busy westerners a taste of the kind of in-depth study that only monks were able to receive in the East. It is my Teacher's wish that eventually Westerners will hold the lineage, transmission, and realizations that up until now were only held by Easterners.

CA: Can you offer a meditation for world peace that the people reading this can practice?

GKL: One very beautiful meditation called ''Giving,'' from the book The Meditation Handbook, by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, will help to develop pure love without strings attached or selfish intention. It is also a very powerful method to help heal others.

1. Quiet and settle the mind by simply watching the breath for a few minutes.

2. Visualize yourself surrounded by your close family and friends. Around them, imagine all other living beings.

3. Develop a warm feeling of affection for those around you by remembering their kindness.

4. Spend a little time contemplating how those around you strongly want inner peace and happiness, yet rarely ever experience it. Remember their difficulties and problems, their fears and pains. Through this contemplation, we develop a sincere wish for all living beings to experience lasting happiness. Once this wish has developed, hold it for a while, and then generate a deeper intention: ''Since I wish for all beings to enjoy true happiness, I must act to make this really happen.'' With this motivation, we imagine that our body transforms into a wish-fulfilling jewel from which Light radiates and illuminates all the realms of all living beings. We imagine everyone receiving whatever they desire, and experiencing uncontaminated happiness.

5. Forgetting the ordinary view, develop conviction that this has happened. We visualize all living beings experiencing pure happiness. We see them experiencing pure happiness. And because of this, we develop a feeling of pure joy. Meditate on this feeling of joy for as long as possible. This feeling is pure love.

When you arise from meditation, continue to hold this wish for others. With everyone you meet, wish for them to experience pure happiness. When our hearts are filled with pure love, we cannot be disturbed by anger or jealousy.

Gen Kelsang Lekma is an English Buddhist nun, and a resident teacher at the Khandhakapala Buddhist Center in Los Angeles. Lekma is highly regarded for the entertaining style of her talks and for her ability to clearly explain, in practical terms, how to use Buddhist thought in everyday life. She is a close disciple of Geshe Kelsang and holds the transmission, lineage, and blessings of his teachings and books.

Geshe Kelsang Gyatso founded the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT), which is a pure form of Mahayana Buddhism that can be traced back to the original teachings of Buddha. The purpose of the NKT is to preserve and promote the essence of Buddha's teachings in a form which is suited to the modern world and Western way of life. Mahayana Buddhists and members of the NKT are taught how to integrate Buddha's teachings into everyday practice and apply this practice in all aspects of daily lives.