If you follow the example of most people of this decadent age, you will end up being just like them—an expert fraud.
You will waste your life chasing after the unattainable. You will be like children who are so busy playing that they are indifferent to hunger and cold and don’t notice the day passing—until it gets dark and they suddenly remember their mother and start to cry. If you genuinely want to help beings, you must first perfect yourself. If you make a lot of ambitious plans, doing business, collecting disciples, and setting yourself up as a teacher, you will end up like a spider caught in its own web.
Spending your life spinning such webs, you won’t notice how fast time is passing until you suddenly realize that death is at hand. You will have used all your energy and gone through all sorts of hardships, but these hardships, unlike the trials of spiritual practice, will not have helped you in the least to improve yourself.
~ H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
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