It doesn’t make sense to grab at the highest teachings and reject the rest. It is the kindness of the Buddhas to provide us with a complete path, and the preliminary practises are part of that path. All great teachers of the past have taught the identical message: ‘Gather the accumulations, purify the obscurations, and receive the blessings of a qualified master.’ In the tradition I represent, the preliminary practises are very, very important. I don’t think that the Buddhas and all the past masters have created them just to lead us astray.

-- Tsoknyi Rinpoche