One of the great blights suffered by modern people is a lack of self-esteem or healthy sense of self. It leads some new students to ask if taking on the suffering of others in tonglen practice might cause them to lose confidence in themselves. Quite the opposite is true. The attitude we cultivate as bodhisattvas — of longing to offer the best of everything to others and willingly accept all loss, unpleasantness or difficulty — actually bolsters our confidence and completely eradicates a lack of self-esteem.
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
from the book Not for Happiness: A Guide to the So-Called Preliminary Practices
Read a random quote or see all quotes by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
Further quotes from the book Not for Happiness:
- Three higher trainings
- Opposite direction to dharma
- No substitute for being guided by a guru
- Maintaining a strong grip on the habits
- Merely the product of your own perception
- Dharma is not a therapy
- Our fundamental problem
- Sadness
- Mara’s five arrows
- Nothing genuinely works in samsara
- Mind-made illusions
- It cannot be fixed
- Very little time left for practice
- We must also practice it
- What Is Bodhichitta
- Without the personal advice of Buddha
- Everything we experience is a product of mind
- For the sake of all other beings
- Dawn of wisdom
- Spiritual practice is like riding a bicycle