A willingness to be inspired and a tendency to be turned off are both relative reactions: some people are inspired by the sight of a serene monk with a begging bowl; others by a half-drunk, half-naked yogi. Certain vajrayana students derive far more inspiration from the sight of a bizarrely dressed guru sporting a good deal of gold jewelry and breaking all the rules of social etiquette than a perfect monk, which, again, shows that the sources of our inspiration are both relative and subjective. Not only does each one of us find inspiration in different places, but what inspires a fifteen-year-old will no longer have the same effect once that person hits forty.
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:
- 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
- Everything we experience is a product of mind
- For the sake of all other beings
- Dawn of wisdom
- Spiritual practice is like riding a bicycle
- Practise whichever method works for you
- Our most important companion
- The merit of maintaining mindfulness