Life is very difficult and we owe it to our fellow human beings to be as cheerful as we can.

People now have their own particular religion - a denomination of one. I suppose it's a part of the new age phenomenon, but it's much wider than that. On the whole, I would say that is healthy. But I think it was always there, secretly.

The fact of the matter is that Buddhism has changed a lot. When St. Francis of Xavier arrived in Japan, he wrote back to the Vatican and made a joke. It is unfortunate, he said, that the Lutherans were here before me. By this he meant that Pure Land Buddhism was so much like Lutheranism.

Syncretism can be disturbing to people. They have often been taught, You have to have solid faith and must be sure of your religion, and so on. They fear that they might be threatened by these new developments and mergings. So you get a backlash against it.

I've often admired the way many Catholics who have left the priesthood, for example, have nevertheless remained sincere Catholics. They voted with their feet.

I think the attractiveness of Buddhism is that it doesn't involve a belief in God. That appeals to a lot of people - intellectuals and well-educated people in particular.

I don't regard fundamentalism in the United States or in Europe as a terrible threat, partly because it is a self-curing disease. The younger generation drifts away, so fundamentalists always have to recruit to keep up with themselves.

One of the effects of religions getting together is that they borrow from one another. An example is the growing number of Catholics who are practicing Yoga and meditation techniques borrowed from Buddhism and Hinduism. So there are these borrowings which I think fertilize the religions.

I don't think religions will merge into a great global faith. But I do believe we're moving toward a global ideology that has a place for religion and recognizes the contributions of the different traditions. Hopefully, it will have an overarching view as to how we can work together for the promotion of human values and spirituality.

Buddhism and Christianity are incompatible because there is no God in Buddhism - particularly in Theravada Buddhism. But they are also allies because their values and practices are compatible and they can work together - indeed, they would benefit greatly from doing so.

Children become more liberal partly as a reaction to their parents and partly through education. Education tends to make people a bit softer.