The quintessential teaching of the Buddha — the nature of mind — is difficult to understand, not because it is complicated but because of its unbearably naked quality. One common method for deciphering the truth is through commentaries, analysis, arguments, and research. But the more we try to decipher this simplicity through academic studies and intellectual analysis, the more we get sidetracked, deterred, or worse, we end up constructing very convincing concepts that we mistake for the simplicity itself. Therefore, one must work hard to accumulate merit. Accumulating merit is the one and only way to cultivate trust in simplicity. But many of us have to first convince ourselves that accumulation of merit works. ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche