We now have a precious human life. However, if, like an explorer who returns empty-handed from an island covered with treasure, we just enjoy this inestimably valuable life for some time without bringing back the gem of the sublime Dharma, our journey will have been useless. And if, caught up in the activities of daily life, we neglect the liberating instructions, we will have possessed this invaluable human existence but gained nothing from it.

4th Shechen Gyaltsab

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:

• 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
• Only the fool wants more pain
• Like gold hidden in its matrix
• To end suffering
• The ultimate nature of mind
• True compassion
• Ever-present Buddha-Nature
• The only way to become buddha
• Detachment
• The alternation of thoughts