Not for Happiness: A Guide to the So-Called Preliminary Practices

beginners must be content to base the majority of their practice on make-believe.

try dressing up for your practice to help make it a special and important event

Sentient beings, like silkworms, create their own traps and die in them.

The antidote to miserliness is to make offerings.

Difficulties are therefore a sign that your practice is working and should make you happy.

to remind ourselves that we have no control over anything at all.

Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Tayé said that if deep down you continue to believe a tiny corner of samsara could be useful or that it might even offer the ultimate solution to all your worldly problems, it will be extremely difficult to become a genuine spiritual seeker.

Therefore, he said, even if you dream you had dinner with the Buddha, treat it as you would a gob of spittle; don’t give it a second thought and certainly don’t write it down or talk about it.

you should be wary and cautious about any feeling that suggests you have a little more compassion than usual, or a little more devotion, or anything else that might cause you to relax your discipline of study and practice.