Padmasambhava defined the future of Tibet, planting the seeds of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which would come to flourish over the next millennium. Padmasambhava taught that past and present are interrelated, connected to each other in one’s present experience.

There are innumerable instances of things which attach themselves to something else, then waste and destroy it. The body has lice; a house has mice; a country has robbers; inferior men have riches; superior men have benevolence and righteousness; priests have the Buddhist law.

Splendid Things
Chinese brocade. A sword with a decorated scabbard. The grain of the wood in a Buddhist statue. Long flowering branches of beautifully coloured wistaria entwined about a pine tree. (p. 109)