Only a Buddha has extinguished all faults and gained all attainments.
Therefore, one should mentally go for refuge to a Buddha, praise him with
speech, and respect him physically. One should enter the teaching of such a
being.
A Buddha's abandonment of defects is of three types: good, complete, and
irreversible. Good abandonment involves overcoming obstructions through their
antidotes, not just through withdrawing from those activities. Complete
abandonment is not trifling, forsaking only some afflictions or just the
manifest afflictions, but forsaking all obstructions. Irreversible
abandonment overcomes the seeds of afflictions and other obstructions in such
a way that defects will never arise again, even when conditions favourable to
them are present.
-- H.H. the Dalai Lama, Tsong-ka-pa and Jeffrey Hopkins, "Tantra in Tibet",
published by Snow Lion Publications
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