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

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Further quotes from the book Not for Happiness:

• Our fundamental problem
• We must also practice it
• Nothing genuinely works in samsara
• Our most important companion
• Self Trapped
• Relative and absolute truth
• Being able to start practicing right away
• Obstacles Create Fertile Ground for Practice
• It cannot be fixed
• Just space
• Life is a stream of sensory illusions
• Rip that ego apart
• Sign of a mature practitioner
• Not designed to cheer you up
• Three higher trainings
• Dawn of wisdom
• Avoid being distracted
• Without the personal advice of Buddha
• Mara’s five arrows