The path to enlightenment is really very simple - all we need to do is stop cherishing ourself and learn to cherish others. All other spiritual realisations will naturally follow from this.
Interpretation
Enlightenment comes from focusing on others rather than oneself.
This quote emphasizes that the key to achieving enlightenment lies in selflessness and the act of cherishing others. By prioritizing the well-being and feelings of those around us, we can cultivate deeper spirituality and understanding, leading to various positive outcomes in our lives.
In practice
In a speech about community service, one might say, 'As Geshe Kelsang Gyatso reminds us, the path to enlightenment is really very simple - all we need to do is stop cherishing ourselves and learn to cherish others.'
Patience is a mind that is able to accept fully and happily, whatever occurs. It is much more than just gritting our teeth and putting up with things. Being patient means to welcome wholeheartedly whatever arises, having given up the idea that things should be other than what they are.
When a jealous person sees signs of other people's success and good fortune, his heart is pierced with envy. But someone who has learned to rejoice in the good fortune of others experiences only happiness. Seeing another person's beautiful house or attractive partner immediately makes him happy - the fact that they are not his own is irrelevant.
Without inner peace, outer peace is impossible. We all wish for world peace, but world peace will never be acheived unless we first establish peace within our own minds. We can send so-called 'peacekeeping forces' into areas of conflict, but peace cannot be oppossed from the outside with guns. Only by creating peace within our own mind and helping others to do the same can we hope to achieve peace in this world.
Happiness and suffering are states of mind, and so their main causes cannot be found outside the mind.
The ideas of control and improvements are often confused with one another. This is because quality control and quality improvement are inseparable.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.
Above all, discard the irrelevant.
I'm no fan of Sarkozy, but I support a ban on face veils because they erase women from society and are promoted by an ultra-conservative ideology that equates piety with the disappearance of women.
Let's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man.
The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.
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