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
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Further quotes from the book Not for Happiness:
- 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
- We must also practice it
- What Is Bodhichitta
- Without the personal advice of Buddha