Just as every single thing is always moving inexorably closer to its ultimate dissolution, so also your own life, like a burning butter-lamp, will soon be consumed. It would be foolish to think that you can first finish all your work and then retire to spend the later stages of your life practicing the Dharma. Can you be certain that you will live that long? Does death not strike the young as well as the old? No matter what you are doing, therefore, remember death and keep your mind focused on the Dharma.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

from the book The Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones

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Further quotes from the book The Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones:

• The spear of mindfulness
• Three turnings of the wheel of Dharma
• The shadow of our actions
• Cause and effect
• Following the view
• Seeing the truth of the teaching
• At the time of death
• The only way to obtain lasting happiness
• The gift of the Dharma
• No greater virtue
• The intention to benefit others
• Mastery of the mind
• A lump of earth
• Two ways to meditate
• This is very shortsighted
• Mind filled with faith
• Bodhicitta
• Mind is king
• Look constantly into the mirror of your mind