How can we help others before we have tamed the negative forces hidden within ourselves?
Anyone who wants to teach the Dharma must first make it an integral part of his being; it would be no good just repeating the words, like a deaf musician playing tunes that, however beautiful, he cannot hear himself.
To receive the teachings, our motive should be a sincere aspiration to apply them to ourselves; if we are just trying to acquire something that we can teach to other people, like the music a beggar plays to get money, receiving teachings will be useful neither to ourselves nor to others.
It is equally wrong to collect knowledge of the Dharma for the sake of our own fame and importance. As the saying goes, Greater knowledge, greater pride; further from home, further from honesty.
How can we help others before we have tamed the negative forces hidden within ourselves? That would just be a joke, like a penniless beggar talking of feeding the whole village.
To secure the genuine welfare of others we must first perfect ourselves until we can emulate Patrul Rinpoche, who modestly claims he has no realization, yet whose whole being is saturated with the meaning of the Dharma.
– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
