Rev. Danny Fisher

Today’s quote is yet another from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, whom I first quoted and wrote a short biography for in this post. This is it — Snow Lion Publications’ Dalai Lama Quote of the Week from many weeks back:

It is very important before receiving any Dharma teaching to set a proper motivation, or reaffirm and enhance that motivation if we already basically have it. This is important not only for those who are listening to a spiritual discourse, but also for the person delivering it. If a discourse or explanation is given with an attitude of pride, competitiveness or jealousy, it will not do as a Dharma teaching. A Buddhist teaching must be given with the sincere wish to benefit all beings by means of it.

Likewise, the listeners to a Buddhist teaching must have a proper motivation, always thinking, “What new point can I learn from this that will help me be of more benefit to others?” If we sit here with the notion to learn something about mahamudra so that we can make a display of ourselves and proudly talk to others about mahamudra so that they will consider us an erudite, spiritual person, we have a completely wrong motivation.