In Sanity We Trust

Another necessary quality is determination. It's easy to gear oneself up for counting mantras or prostrations. For some, physical discipline is also easy. But the determination of the meditator is different. We must be determined to strive to purify our obscurations until they're completely gone--in other words, until our buddha-nature unobstructedly shines through. When we sit, we decide to do our best not to be swayed by our negativity. We should cultivate this attitude at the beginning of our session. Otherwise, no matter how much we practice, we will daydream a lot and our meditation will always be wishy-washy. I know this from experience--I may do my session of meditation, but it is tepid. Why? I don't have that inner strength to remain unmoved by the arising of the various mental contents.

--from A Beginner's Guide to Tibetan Buddhism, by Bruce Newman, published by Snow Lion Publications

Buddhists take a vow of morality in the context of first taking refuge--in Buddha, in the states of realization, and in the spiritual community. Refuge is the foundation for the practice of morality. Buddha teaches us how to find refuge from suffering and limitation, but the chief refuge, or source of protection, is found in the states of realization achieved through practicing morality, concentrated meditation, and wisdom. ...A lama from the Drukpa Kagyu tradition and I were very close. We met frequently and always used to joke, teasing each other back and forth. On one occasion I asked him about his spiritual experience. He told me that when he was young, he was staying with his lama who had him perform the preliminary practice of making a hundred thousand prostrations to the Buddha, the doctrine, and the spiritual community. Early in the morning and late in the evening he had to make prostrations on a low platform the length of his body. His lama was meditating in the dark in the next room; so to trick him into thinking he was making prostrations he would tap with his knuckles on the prostration platform. Years later, after his lama passed away, he was taking a meditation retreat in a cave, during which he recalled his lama's great kindness over years of training him, and he wept and wept. He almost fainted, but then experienced the clear light, which he continuously practiced. Subsequently, after successful meditations he occasionally would remember past lives in vivid reflections before him.