Daily Inspiration Quote by Saskya Pandita

Power rarely announces itself as charity; it prefers to be mistaken for a ladder. Saskya Pandita, a 13th-century Tibetan Buddhist scholar-statesman negotiating with the brute realities of empire, frames dependence not as humiliation but as strategy. The image is disarmingly pastoral: a small plant hitching itself to a tall tree and suddenly reaching the canopy. It’s also a political diagram. Align with the “great” and you gain altitude you could never produce alone.

The intent is double-edged. On one level, it’s pragmatic advice for survival in hierarchical worlds: patrons, protectors, stronger allies. In Pandita’s era, that could mean monasteries dealing with Mongol power, or local leaders learning when to bargain, when to yield, and how to turn proximity to authority into leverage. The subtext is that moral worth and material power don’t naturally coincide; you may have to borrow force from those who have it. Dependence becomes a tool, not a confession.

But the metaphor also warns. A climbing plant rises by attachment, not by roots. Your ascent is real, yet contingent; the tree can shake you off, or simply die. That tension is what makes the line work: it sanctifies tactical humility while quietly reminding you of its cost. The “small” can rise high, yes, but the route is relational, not heroic. In a culture that often romanticizes self-made virtue, Pandita offers a colder, clearer calculus: elevation comes from understanding structures of power, then using them without being used up by them.