You might ask: ‟If the nature of buddhahood is in me, why can’t I perceive it right away?” It is because, like gold hidden in its matrix, that nature is hidden by the tendencies we have accumulated since time immemorial, tendencies that have themselves been created by mental poisons and then reinforced by the actions that those disturbances have produced.

4th Shechen Gyaltsab
quoted in the book On the Path to Enlightenment: Heart Advice from the Great Tibetan Masters
source: http://www.matthieuricard.org/en/thoughts/05
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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
- To end suffering
- The ultimate nature of mind
- True compassion
- Ever-present Buddha-Nature
- The only way to become buddha
- Seeing the inner teacher