Subconsciously we are lured by the expectation that we will reach a stage where we don’t have to fix anything ever again. One day we will reach “happily ever after.” We are convinced of the notion of “resolution.” It’s as if everything that we’ve experienced up until now, our whole lives to this moment, was […]
The aim of far too many teachings these days is to make people “feel good,” and even some Buddhist masters are beginning to sound like New Age apostles. Their talks are entirely devoted to validating the manifestation of ego and endorsing the “rightness” of our feelings, neither of which have anything to do with the […]
Jigme Lingpa has advised us that as practitioners, we need two things. One is humility and the other is confidence. When you lose your inspiration, when you think that you are lazy and you don’t have devotion, then you should think, ‘The fact that I think like this is good, it means that I am […]
Pride and pity are closely related. Believing that your life is harder and sadder than everyone else’s is simply a manifestation of clinging to self. When the self develops self-pity, it eliminates any space that others have to feel compassionate. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Renunciation mind is very simple in a way: we have renunciation mind when we realise that all this is not a big deal. Somebody steps on your toe – what’s the big deal? The more we get used to this notion, the more we have renunciation mind. Renunciation somehow has this connotation of giving something […]
From one perspective, merit is “ability”; all the abilities, in fact, that make it possible for us to hear, contemplate, meditate on and practise the dharma, including the ability to feel curious. These days our merit is so limited that the vast majority of human beings are unable to recognise how special dharma is. Not […]
Like a child at the cinema, we get caught up in the illusion. From this comes all of our vanity, ambition, and insecurity. We fall in love with the illusions we have created and develop excessive pride in our appearance, our possessions, and our accomplishments. It’s like wearing a mask and proudly thinking that the […]
As the Buddha said to the gathering of monks during his teachings on the vinaya, discipline helps us maintain samadhi, becoming accustomed to samadhi lengthens our periods of sobriety, and sobriety is none other than wisdom. Having realised wisdom, we are no longer bound by desire, anger and ignorance, and are able to perceive all […]
Being in the present is so important in buddhism. It is the core strategy of buddhism to do whatever it takes to keep the mind present, to have ones mind from going astray. Every single method that exists in buddhism is for that result. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
The more you examine Buddhism the more you will discover its greatness. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
For a dharma practitioner, wealth is not gold, silver, or a healthy bank account; wealth is contentment — the feeling that you have enough and need nothing more. Jigme Lingpa went on to say that although renunciants may not necessarily hunger for wealth, they might well long for fame, which he warned practitioners, is even […]
In the spirit of where there is a demand, there is supply, we should have aspirations and longing for the appearance of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas to never to cease, and — to put it in a trendy term — their swift rebirth. But this rebirth should not be limited to a Tibetan child who […]
The best offering one can make to the Buddhas and their teachers is to put the Dharma into practice. So it has been said by previous masters. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
To “know” the emotion is to understand that, as it has no root, there is and never has been an emotion. Some people talk about emotion, particularly the negative emotions, as if they were some kind of hideous, demonic force that willfully invades your being, but they are not like that at all. When you […]
Maitreya said that to hear the dharma is to open the door to liberation, and many students imagine that study in the form of hearing and contemplating the dharma will suffice as a dharma practice. It’s true that for those on the threshold of spiritual practice, to listen to and to read dharma is extremely […]
The most crucial prerequisite for the practise of dharma is complete isolation because when we are alone, we are subject to fewer distractions, creating the perfect conditions for sadness to grow in our minds. For those who know how to use it, sadness is a fertile ground from which all kinds of beneficial thoughts can […]
As Buddha said in the Prajnaparamita Sutra, all phenomena are like a dream and an illusion, even enlightenment is like a dream and an illusion. And if there is anything greater or grander than enlightenment, that, too, is like a dream and an illusion. His disciple, the great Nagarjuna, wrote that the Lord Buddha has […]
See you later. We don’t know. Maybe there is no later. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
I will repeat that mindfulness, in other words ‘awareness,’ is our practice. We are ignorant beings, and as such require constant reminders about the importance of making the effort to land in this awareness. Therefore all our guru’s activities—from when he yawns or coughs, to when he appears or disappears—are his way of reminding us […]
When you don’t have obsession, When you don’t have hang-ups, when you don’t have inhibition, When you are not afraid, You will be breaking certain rules. When you are not afraid You will not fulfill somebody’s expectations. What more enlightenment do you want. That’s it. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
