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"If we were taught from infancy that we belonged to the world, to nature, to creation, to all our our relations, to the big sangha, as an intimate part of the sangha, then all that inseparable richness would be a living part of "our" daily life in that deep sense of Community versus the dualistic context of isolation and separateness."

- Shakti Das

Walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle process; it is not something to jump into naively. there are numerous sidetracks which lead to a distorted, ego-centered version of spirituality; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques. This fundamental distortion may be referred to as spiritual materialism."

Our experience of life is in large part determined by our conditioned belief system: we believe in certain things, cherish particular hopes, entertain specific fears, and generally point ourselves in some direction based on this focus. The teachings in this text advise us to relax our focus and allow the wider perspective of total openness to flood through us and light our world from within. This openness may be as simple as being alone and quiet, at peace. When we are able to relax like this, the energy we invest in maintaining our usual focus is released, freed into its natural condition.

In the process of letting go of a specific focus, however, we tend to let go of one thing, only to replace it with another - something we believe to be more true or perhaps more spiritual. This is spiritual materialism: when we become caught in the external trappings of a religion, we fail to penetrate to the heart of its spiritual meaning and actually live it.

- Merrill Peterson
from the introduction to You Are the Eyes of the World

The Tibetan texts specifically state that each path primarily teaches its principal method. Buddhism is about awareness and our capacity to know and live that awareness. This cannot be limited by a method. In practicing vipasyana or zazen one may perfectly well have understood what dzogchen calls self-liberation. To be more precise, what we are calling a method such as renunciation, transformation, or self-liberation, does not mean the form a practice takes but what is actually going on in the practitioner, what is working to unfold the individuals innate, natural state. This depends entirely on capacity. The experience is what matters, not the name or outward form.

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Freeing or liberating thought does not mean ignoring, letting go of, being indifferent to, observing, or even not having thoughts. It means being present in hope and fear, pain and pleasure, not as objects before us, but as the radiant clarity of our natural state. Thus anger, for example, when experienced dualistically, is an irritation which we may indulge in or reject, depending on our conditioning. Either way we are caught up in it and act out of it. But when aware of anger as a manifestation of clarity, its energy is a very fresh awareness of the particulars of the situation. However, these particulars are no longer irritating.

- Kennard Lipman, commentary
You Are the Eyes of the World, - Longchenpa

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To be more precise, what we are calling a method such as renunciation, transformation, or self-liberation, does not mean the form a practice takes but what is actually going on in the practitioner, what is working to unfold the individuals innate, natural state.