Just as it is impossible to buy anything without money or make anything without materials and tools, there is no way to attain enlightenment without practicing. Unless you practice properly, purifying your past negative actions and avoiding further downfalls, it is no good imagining that the Buddha will catch you with his hands and prevent your falling into the lower realms. It is true that no one in this world has greater compassion, wisdom, and ability than the Three Jewels, whose blessings are omnipresent. But if you do not have devotion and do not practice, you will not be open to the Buddha’s blessings, and even if he holds you in his hands, he will not be able to help you.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
from the book Zurchungpa's Testament
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Further quotes from the book Zurchungpa's Testament:
- Complete absence of doubt
- Projections of the mind
- Nothing else than the projection of one’s own mind
- When true realization dawns in one’s mind
- Recognizing awareness
- The even state of all-pervading peace
- Suitable vessels
- Superficial dharma practice
- Two great sources of fear in samsara
- All perceptions are similar to a dream
- First mature your own mind
- Not outside yourself
- The three higher trainings
- Free from the extreme of existence and that of nonexistence
- What a waste of time
- Like two expressions on the same face
- Perceiving everything in its natural purity
- Just as space
- Not fabricated, never stained