Ethics and inner values based in a religious context are more like tea. The tea we drink is mostly composed of water, but it also contains some other ingredients - tea leaves, spices, perhaps some sugar or, at least in Tibet, salt - and this makes it more nutritious and sustaining and something we want everyday. But however the tea is prepared, the primary ingredient is always water.

If you shift your focus from yourself to others, extend your concern to others, and cultivate the thought of caring for the well being of others, then this will have the immediate effect of opening up your life and helping you to reach out.

The practice of cultivating altruism has a beneficial effect not only from the religious point of view but also from the mundane point of view, not only for long term spiritual development but even in terms of immediate rewards.

The enemy is the necessary condition for practicing patience.