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:
- Rip that ego apart
- Relative and absolute truth
- The decision to follow a spiritual path
- It’s all a matter of motivation
- Three higher trainings
- Opposite direction to dharma
- No substitute for being guided by a guru
- Merely the product of your own perception
- Maintaining a strong grip on the habits
- Dharma is not a therapy
- Our fundamental problem
- Sadness
- Mara’s five arrows
- Mind-made illusions
- Nothing genuinely works in samsara
- It cannot be fixed
- Very little time left for practice
- We must also practice it
- What Is Bodhichitta
- Everything we experience is a product of mind