All too often, though, even so-called Buddhists misunderstand bodhichitta and reduce it to little more than compassionate loving-kindness. Love, compassion and wanting to make people happy are very popular ideals these days and are often promoted as bodhichitta’s most important features. We forget that without bodhichitta there would be no mahayana or vajrayana Buddhism, and that the most crucial aspect of both these yanas is the wisdom of understanding shunyata (emptiness). Without wisdom, compassion alone is not “bodhichitta,” and vice versa; both qualities are essential.

Read a random quote or see all quotes by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.

Further quotes from the book Not for Happiness:

• Filtered perception
• Being able to start practicing right away
• Sources of our inspiration
• Rip that ego apart
• Relative and absolute truth
• It’s all a matter of motivation
• The decision to follow a spiritual path
• Three higher trainings
• Opposite direction to dharma
• No substitute for being guided by a guru
• 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