Devotion, scholarship, and meditation can all be empty rituals, and
whether these devotional acts or any other practices are in fact Dharma
depends solely upon one's motivation. . . . Our initial attempts at
spiritual practice tend to be very self-conscious. We want to overcome
the distortions of our minds and cultivate such wholesome qualities as
kindness, insight, mindfulness, and concentration; but as we engage in
practices designed to cultivate these, at first they appear to be only
mental exercises. Dharma seems separate, something adopted from outside.
But as we go deeper into the practice, this sense of separation begins
to disappear; our minds become the very Dharma we seek to cultivate.
-B. Alan Wallace, /Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up/
