The decision to follow a spiritual path is the central most important undertaking of a person’s life, one that is usually made when trust in more worldly objectives is betrayed, causing you to resolve to switch to a more trustworthy path. If listening to and contemplating the teachings and practising meditation inspires you, the likelihood is that you will choose to rely on the logic of the dharma. And having gradually developed an unshakable trust and belief in Buddha, dharma and sangha, you will start to long to follow what you now believe to be the only truly nondeceptive path in this world. Based on that trust, you take refuge.

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:
- Our fundamental problem
- We must also practice it
- Altruism bolsters self-confidence
- Nothing genuinely works in samsara
- Our most important companion
- Self Trapped
- Relative and absolute truth
- Being able to start practicing right away
- Obstacles Create Fertile Ground for Practice
- It cannot be fixed
- Just space
- Life is a stream of sensory illusions
- Rip that ego apart
- Sign of a mature practitioner
- Not designed to cheer you up
- Three higher trainings
- Dawn of wisdom
- Avoid being distracted
- Without the personal advice of Buddha
- Mara’s five arrows