You should always remember retreat means making war on delusions. You have to always remember this – this is inner war, but this is a one-time war. Once you defeat delusion by eliminating the cause, the seed of delusion, by actualizing the remedy, the path, it doesn’t come back again; once the seed is removed, delusion never comes back, so this is just a one-time war. The outside, external wars are endless, because you have to fight them again and again.

In Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara, he mentions that the outside enemy never ends, never finishes, however much you are able to kill him or her. Shantideva used the example that if the whole earth is covered by thorns, there is not enough leather to cover the whole earth with leather, but if you have leather under your foot, it’s like the whole earth is covered by leather. Shantideva said that the meaning of this is that once the inner enemy, the delusions are destroyed, all the outside enemies are destroyed.