The teachings of the Dharma have great power, but unless you practice them properly that power will remain merely as a potential which is never expressed. If one has a tool and does not use it, not much will be accomplished. An unused tool is not particularly beneficial in itself. But if you truly put the teachings into practice, as the Dharma takes birth in and grows in your mindstream, all your faults will naturally diminish and all your positive qualities will spontaneously blossom, just as the sun, as it rises higher in the morning, gradually spreads increasing light throughout the world.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
from the book The Heart of Compassion: The Thirty-seven Verses on the Practice of a Bodhisattva
translated by Padmakara Translation Group
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Further quotes from the book The Heart of Compassion:
- The children of the buddhas
- Giving and taking
- Seeing clearly how deceiving the ways of the world are
- The best opportunity to put the teachings into practice
- Neither discouragement nor pride
- Powerful sources of help
- Two types of friends
- The reason you are wandering in samsara
- Phenomena adorn emptiness
- Nothing to be grasped
- A practice based on your mind
- Opportunity
- Phenomena adorn emptiness, but never corrupt it
- Just projections of the mind
- Impermanence dawning in your mind
- The only thing that is really worth doing
- The three aspects of diligence
- The magnifying glass of your faith and devotion
- Sealing your merit with authentic dedication
- Accepting short-term sufferings