The Dalai Lama quote of the week from Snow Lion Publications:Dalai Lama Quote of the Week
Any sense of conceit or self-importance gets in the way of cultivating the genuine altruistic intention, and the most effective remedy against this is the cultivation of humility.
I can tell you a more recent story to illustrate this point. The great nineteenth-century Tibetan Dzokchen meditator Dza Patrul Rinpoche always maintained a demeanor of true humility. At one time, when he was giving a series of teachings to a large crowd of students, he experienced a forceful yearning for solitude. So one day he quietly left his residence and disappeared, dressed like an ordinary pilgrim and carrying a walking staff and very little else. When he reached a nomadic camp he sought shelter for a few days with one of the families. While he was staying with them, his hostess asked him to read some texts and, since he looked just like an ordinary pilgrim, in return for his food and lodging she asked him to help with the household chores, which included the disposal of the contents of her chamber pot.
One day, while he was away from the camp attending to this task, some of his well-dressed monk students came looking for him. When his hostess heard their description of him, she suddenly realised this was the same person she had asked to throw away the contents of her chamber pot. (It is said she was so embarrassed that she just ran away!) Such was the humility of this great teacher, who had many thousands of students.
...great practitioners of the altruistic intention also possess a tremendous courage grounded in real inner strength.... This combination of a total lack of conceit yet possessing great depth of courage is what is required in a true practitioner of bodhicitta, the altruistic mind of awakening.
~ From Lighting the Way by the Dalai Lama, translated by Geshe Thupten Jinpa, published by Snow Lion Publications.
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