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:

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