If the traveller can find A virtuous and wise companion Let him go with him joyfully And overcome the dangers of the way. But if you cannot find Friend or master to go with you, Travel on alone.
But if you do not find an intelligent companion, a wise and well-behaved person going the same way as yourself, then go on your way alone, like a king abandoning a conquered kingdom, or like a great elephant in the deep forest.
Believe nothing,
No matter where you read it,
Or who has said it,
Not even if I have said it,
Unless it agrees with your own reason
And your own common sense.
If one doth act in friendly wise, With no evil thought toward any single creature, And in so doing becometh proper, And if he have compassion in his soul Toward all living beings--this noble one Doth acquire abundant Virtue.
A virtuous man or woman who is determined to develop the Supreme Enlightened Mind, should thus develop it: I have to lead all living beings to put a stop to (reincarnation) and escape (suffering), and when they have been so led, not one of them in fact stops (reincarnating) or escapes suffering. Why? Because, if a Bodhisattva believes in the notion of an ego, a personality, or a living being, he is not a true Bodhisattva.