+~
+ Shantideva cites three benefits of pain. First, it is valuable because
+through sorrow, pride is driven out. No matter how arrogant and condescending
+we've been, great suffering can humble us. The pain of a serious illness or
+loss of a loved one can be transformative, softening us and making us less
+self-centered.
+ The second benefit of pain is empathy: the compassion felt for those who
+wander in samsara. Our personal suffering brings compassion for others in the
+same situation. A young woman was telling me that when her baby died, she
+felt a deep connection to all the other parents who had lost children. This
+was, as she put it, the unexpected blessing of her sorrow.
+ The third value of suffering is that evil is avoided and goodness seems
+delightful. When we practice according to Shantideva's instructions, we can
+get smarter about cause and result. Based on this understanding, we'll have
+less inclination to cause harm, and more desire to gather virtue and benefit
+others.
+ -- Pema Chödrön, from "No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the
+ Bodhisattva"
+~
+ Since emptiness, from between positive and negative phenomena, is a negative
+phenomenon and, from between affirming negatives and non-affirming negatives,
+is a non-affirming negative, when it appears to the mind, nothing will appear
+except an absence of such inherent existence—a mere elimination of the
+object of negation. Thus, for the mind of a person realizing emptiness there
+is no sense of, "I am ascertaining emptiness," and there is no thought,
+"This is emptiness." If you had such a sense, emptiness would become
+distant. Nevertheless, the emptiness of inherent existence is ascertained and
+realized.
+ After such realization, even though whatever phenomena appear appear to
+exist in their own right, you understand that they do not exist that way. You
+have a sense that they are like a magician's illusions in that there is a
+combination of their appearing one way but actually existing another way.
+Though they appear to exist inherently, you understand that they are empty of
+inherent existence.
+ When phenomena are seen this way, the conceptions that superimpose a sense
+of goodness or badness on phenomena beyond what is actually there and serve as
+a basis for generating desire and hatred lessen; this is because they are
+based on the misconception that phenomena are established in their own right.
+ -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+ Rely on timeless awareness, which is free of elaboration, without
+ identity, and the very essence of being;
+ do not rely on ordinary consciousness, which is a mind fixated
+ on characteristics and concepts.
+
+ Timeless awareness entails (a) understanding that the way in which phenomena
+actually abide is, from the ultimate perspective, free of all limitations
+imposed by elaborations of origination, cessation, and so forth; (b)
+realization of the nonexistence of the two kinds of identity; and (c) unerring
+knowledge of sugatagarbha as utter lucidity, the way in which things actually
+abide, beyond any context of speculative value judgments. It is on this
+awareness that one should rely.
+ Ordinary consciousness entails (a) belief that what one immediately
+perceives constitutes something truly existent; (b) conceptualization in terms
+of characteristics, such as the sense of personal identity and the mind-body
+aggregates; and (c) mental states that are conditioned, for example, by
+attitudes of naively fixating on the pleasures of the senses. One should not
+rely on such consciousness.
+ -- Jamgön Kongtrül Lodro Taye, from "The Treasury of Knowledge: Book Seven
+ and Book Eight, Parts One and Two"