Je Tsong Khapa
Lobsang Drakpa
(1357-1419)
“Ethical discipline is the water to wash away the stains of misdeeds. It’s the ray of moonlight to cool the scorching heat of disturbing emotions. (With it,) you shine out amidst the nine kinds of beings, like a Mount Meru. By its power, you bend all beings (to your positive influence) without (need for) mesmerizing stares. Realizing this, the hallowed beings safeguard, as they would their eyes, the vowed discipline that they have take on purely. The ennobling, impeccable Lama has practiced like that. Let me, too, who strives for liberation, cultivate myself in the same way.”
From The Concise Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment by Je Tsong Khapa, as published in The Abbreviated Points of the Graded Path by Tsongkhhapa. Translated by Alex Berzin. PDF available from The Berzin Archives.