Getting butter from milk is only possible because milk already contains cream. No one ever made butter by churning water. The prospector looks for gold in rocks and not in wood chips. Likewise, the quest for perfect enlightenment only makes sense because buddha-nature is already present in every being. Without that nature, all efforts would be futile.

Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye

quoted in the book On the Path to Enlightenment: Heart Advice from the Great Tibetan Masters

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Further quotes from the book On the Path to Enlightenment:

• The enemies dwelling in your mind
• Right Time
• Cut the knot of greed
• Just as clouds
• Apply yourself unrelentingly to spiritual practice
• Clarity and emptiness
• Whatever you do
• Trample on anger with realization
• See the difference
• You who have a precious human life
• The four boundless qualities
• Our journey will have been useless
• Only the fool wants more pain
• Like gold hidden in its matrix
• To end suffering
• The ultimate nature of mind
• True compassion
• The only way to become buddha
• Seeing the inner teacher