You understand that all phenomena are false, but this does not help anything. This understanding, that everything is dream-like, illusory, unreal and false should be assimilated in your being. Without taking it to heart it becomes mere platitude. This does not result in enlightenment.
If you think that appearance and emptiness are indivisible, you should be detached from appearances. Are you?
If you think that buddhas and sentient beings are indivisible, you should honor and serve sentient beings to the same degree as you would the buddhas. Do you do that?
If you think, ‘I will have no karmic ripening even if I engage in the ten nonvirtues,’ you should be able to accept the ten nonvirtuous actions of others directed towards yourself – even if you yourself are killed. Can you do that?
If you think, ‘Even if I were to engage in the ten virtues there would be no benefit,’ you should not have any sense of joy when you are benefitted by others who are practicing the ten virtues – even if your own life is saved. Do you?
Now, go again to a solitary place and let your body remain like a corpse, let your voice remain like that of a mute and let your mind remain like the sky.
Shri Singha
quoted in the book Treasures from Juniper Ridge: The Profound Instructions of Padmasambhava to the Dakini Yeshe Tsogyal
translated by Erik Pema Kunsang
Read a random quote or see all quotes by Shri Singha.