Just as every single thing is always moving inexorably closer to its ultimate dissolution, so also your own life, like a burning butter-lamp, will soon be consumed. It would be foolish to think that you can first finish all your work and then retire to spend the later stages of your life practicing the Dharma. Can you be certain that you will live that long? Does death not strike the young as well as the old? No matter what you are doing, therefore, remember death and keep your mind focused on the Dharma.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

from the book The Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones

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Further quotes from the book The Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones:

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• At the time of death
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• Mastery of the mind
• A lump of earth
• Following the view
• Seeing the truth of the teaching
• The intention to benefit others
• The gift of the Dharma
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• Three turnings of the wheel of Dharma
• Don’t be like that
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• Cause and effect