Ultimately, in order to attain enlightenment, we must exhaust all our karma, both good and bad, not merely collect as much good karma as we can and get rid of the bad. Karma is by nature conditioning, and since all our activities are conditioned by karma, they can only be a direct contradiction to our independence. Therefore, it is not possible for any of us to be truly independent.
The point of thinking about cause and effect before we start to practice each day is not merely to gather knowledge about karma’s complex functions and systems, but to remind ourselves that we have no control over anything at all.
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:
- Filtered perception
- Being able to start practicing right away
- Sources of our inspiration
- Rip that ego apart
- Relative and absolute truth
- It’s all a matter of motivation
- The decision to follow a spiritual path
- 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