… the purpose of all the teachings in the Great and Lesser Vehicles can be condensed into a single point: to subdue self-clinging. As we practice, therefore, we should be reducing our self-cherishing. If it does not act as an antidote to the ego, our whole practice of Dharma will be pointless. Whether or not the practice we do is actually the Dharma depends entirely on this, which is why it has been said that this is the scale on which those who practice the Dharma are weighed. Of course, other people who see you may testify to your being an authentic Dharma practitioner, but ordinary, worldly people cannot know what is hidden in your mind. You might feel pleased at having done one or two good deeds, but the real signs of having trained one’s mind in bodhichitta are that one is not ashamed of oneself and that one is always in a happy frame of mind, whatever difficult or painful situations one finds oneself in, because rather than getting depressed about them, one takes them as aids to the practice. Nevertheless, while these may be indications that one has really gone to the heart of the teachings, they do not mean that one does not need to train further. So, until you attain Buddhahood, train in the precepts to make bodhichitta grow more and more.

A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom: Complete instructions on the preliminary practice of the profound and Secret Heart Essence of the Dakini
by Dudjom Rinpoche Jigdral Yeshe Dorje
translated by the Padmakara Translation Group.—1st ed.