There is a quote attributed to the Dalai Lama: “Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.” What is the meaning behind this?

In my recent post on ideology, I argued that ideas can be beautiful and useful, but ideology often proves counterproductive since it closes minds and hardens hearts. In being dogmatic about things—enforcing rules unthinkingly and drawing boundaries readily—we quickly lose sight of the original intent of important core ideas. We focus entirely on the “what” to the exclusion of the “why.”

Of course, rules (by which I also mean laws and traditions) are often very useful and sometimes very necessary. Most of them exist for a reason, and plenty of those reasons were (and perhaps still are) perfectly good. But ultimately, rules are a means to an end, not an end unto themselves. So when we simply accept a rule without question, when we fail to delve into the original intent behind it and understand its “spirit” as well as its “letter,” we run the risk of becoming mindless servants to the rule without comprehending the beneficial purpose it was meant to embody.

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