Complete Instructions on the Preliminary Practices

Patience in happily accepting suffering

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

However much you suffer in the physical, verbal, and mental hardships that you undergo for the sake of accomplishing enlightenment through the Dharma, apply yourself joyfully and enthusiastically without losing interest. Just as it is necessary to employ drastic treatments to reduce the suffering in serious illnesses, one needs enormous courage to stop the battle of cyclic existence and conquer the enemies that are the afflictive emotions.

— A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom: Complete Instructions on the Preliminary Practices by Dudjom Rinpoche, Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje

Subdue Self-clinging

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

… 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.

The fault in not having faith

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

People who lack faith are deprived of the good fortune of being able to practice the Dharma, and their not having faith is therefore an immeasurable defect. Just as a rock on the bottom of the ocean will never appear on the surface, without faith it is impossible to reach the dry land of liberation. Just as a ferry without a helmsman will never reach the other shore, without faith it is impossible to traverse the great river of suffering. Without faith, it is as impossible to nurture good qualities in one’s being as it is for someone with no hands to pick up anything even if he were to find himself on an island of gold. Without faith, it is impossible for the shoot of bodhichitta to grow, for nothing can ever sprout from a burned seed. Without faith, one is like a blind person who finds himself in a temple: it is impossible to see the light of the Dharma. Without faith, however clever one is, one is trapped in the deep pit of cyclic existence: everything one does becomes an action that leads to cyclic existence, and it is impossible to ever attain the freedom of enlightenment. As the Sutra of the Ten Qualities puts it, From roasted seeds No greenery will sprout. In those who have no faith No virtue will appear.”

— A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom: Complete Instructions on the Preliminary Practices by Dudjom Rinpoche, Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje