How we interpret information and our experiences of the world depends entirely on how much merit we have accumulated. For example, what does the word impermanent mean? On the grossest possible level, those who have very little merit believe that ‘ impermanent’ means decay and death, or the changing seasons. Once we start to accumulate merit, though, our understanding becomes more subtle. Imagine you are experiencing a moment of happiness. If you have a little merit you will be able, to a certain degree, to interpret and understand ‘impermanence’ and watch your mood change from unhappiness to happiness and back again, making any disappointment or hope you might feel less intense.
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
from the book Not for Happiness: A Guide to the So-Called Preliminary Practices
Read a random quote or see all quotes by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
Further quotes from the book Not for Happiness:
- It’s all a matter of motivation
- The signs of progress
- Adapting the Dharma
- No substitute for being guided by a guru
- Wealth is contentment
- Mind-made illusions
- No end to samsara’s sufferings
- For the sake of all other beings
- What Is Bodhichitta
- What is merit
- Our fundamental problem
- We must also practice it
- Altruism bolsters self-confidence
- Nothing genuinely works in samsara
- Self Trapped
- Relative and absolute truth
- Being able to start practicing right away
- Obstacles Create Fertile Ground for Practice
- It cannot be fixed
- Life is a stream of sensory illusions