These days we often encounter people who mix and blend religions to suit their comfort level. Trying to be nonsectarian, they attempt to explain Christian concepts from Buddha’s point of view, or to find similarities between Buddhism and Sufism, or between Zen and business. Of course, one can always find at least small similarities between […]
If you can remember to say “everything is a dream, everything is an illusion,” even if you are kind of faking it, even if you are not buying it wholeheartedly, it would have so much benefit. You could recite and contemplate, “What I am looking at is just my dream, my illusion, my projection,” every […]
It may sound as if you must have devotion first in order to have an understanding of the view, that devotion ignites the practice of the Dharma. But as you become more seasoned in practicing the Dharma, especially the Vajrayana, the gap between devotion and the goal of the devotion becomes very small. As you […]
Imagine a clay pot. It is both surrounded by and filled with space. When the pot breaks, the space that had been inside the pot mixes with the space that had been outside of it and the two become inseparable. It is not possible to tell the “inside” space from the “outside” space; space is […]
Having developed trust and belief in your guru, you may well go the extra mile and try to accomplish whatever he asks, as a way of accumulating merit and dismantling your ego and self-clinging. If you have developed a certain level of spiritual maturity, when your guru asks you to do his gardening for him, […]
Imagine a beautiful casket so finely crafted that once it is shut, the seam between the lid and the base is entirely invisible. It appears to be a single, exquisitely worked piece of wood, not a casket at all, and nothing about it suggests any possible opening. This casket is exactly like samsaric life. Day […]
None of your assumptions about who you are, who you make-believe you are, or the labels you attach to yourself is the real ‘you’; it’s all guesswork. And it is this very guesswork – assumption, make-believe, labelling and so on – that creates the illusion of samsara. Although the world around you and the beings […]
In Tibetan we have the expression thukyid chikdre: thuk is an honorific term for the guru’s mind, yid is your mind, chik means “one,” and dre means “merged.” This is the quintessence of the quintessence of the guru yoga practice. The whole point is to accomplish this merging with the guru’s mind. Once the student […]
Where does low self-esteem come from? Those with low self-esteem tend to have highly developed egos; they long to be best at everything and valued highly by everyone they meet, and imagine their ego is repressed, weak and needs boosting. But once we develop the attitude of a bodhisattva, we have little or no ego […]
One of the meanings of the Sanskrit word “guru” is “teacher” or “master” and represents a person who teaches and transmits knowledge, like a master carpenter teaches an apprentice. Imagine that although you have no talent whatsoever and are unemployed, you also have a large family to feed. One day a carpenter offers to teach […]
You will probably be able to see the living for a few days after you die and may even try to make contact with them. In practice, the dead rarely interact successfully with the living and eventually are unable to see the living at all. One of the most painful experiences suffered by bardo beings […]
Vajra hell is a profound concept. It’s not necessarily a place where you burn in molten iron surrounded by hell guardians with hideous faces. Vajra hell can be a place where you become so attached to the logic of karma that you get entangled, so caught up by rationality that you cannot get beyond it. […]
One of the main reasons we practice the Dharma is to prepare ourselves for certain death. For some, it is the only reason they practice – but that reason alone will make their Dharma practice worthwhile. These days various aspects of the Dharma, like mindfulness, are becoming more and more popular, but rarely as a […]
The guru must have pure perception of his own guru and, if possible, of all phenomena. On a more individual level, the guru must have pure perception of his or her students. Pure perception is the foundation of the Vajrayana. Even in the Mahayana, pure perception if the driving force behind working with a disciple. […]
Praying to the guru is not necessarily a matter of chanting mantras or reading a supplication composed by others. The real prayer, on the relative level, is just thinking of the guru — his form, his name, his activities, his color, his shape, even his movement. If you forget to pray to the guru for […]
There is so much benefit in requesting teachings, especially if you supplicate not just for your own benefit. If you request teachings with a motivation triggered by renunciation and compassion (bodhichitta) — if you are requesting the teachings to benefit all beings — this is the supreme way to request. But if the guru is […]
The Buddhist practice of nonviolence is not merely submissiveness with a smile or meek thoughtfulness. The fundamental cause of violence is when one is fixated on an extreme idea, such as justice or morality. This fixation usually stems from a habit of buying into dualistic views, such as bad and good, ugly and beautiful, moral […]
Shouldn’t we all try to contemplate the inevitability of our own death at least once this lifetime? Particularly as every one of us will die – itself a crucially important piece of information. Doesn’t putting some effort into processing the inescapable fact of our own death make sense? Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Another danger is that Buddhism is becoming synonymous with mindfulness, happiness, and nonviolence. Many people think that’s all there is. When they talk about mindfulness, they immediately think of sitting cross-legged on a cushion with a straight back. This kind of thinking will destroy Buddhism. If we choose to emphasize only one technique, the others […]
Remembering everything you experience is created by mind is also the direct antidote to pride and ego, and once it becomes second nature, you will no longer cling to your dharma activities. This does not mean you will not practise. On the contrary, in the same way someone dying of thirst cannot resist taking large […]
