Dharma practice means physical hardship; it means that you shouldn't be pansies about it. You should exert yourselves wholeheartedly to engage in the practice, so that it will affect your body, speech, and mind.

As long as we're in a state of confusion, overwhelmed by the three conflicting emotions, trapped in cyclic existence, we're not happy and we can't benefit sentient beings. Even though we think we might be benefitting them, ultimately we're not. The only way to really be of benefit, to ourselves and others, is to establish the status of buddha. There's nothing better than this. But until we purify our unwholesome karma, especially that of the body, there's no buddha—the buddha will not exist for us.