In a dream, whatever we’re doing — walking, sitting or eating food — is all labeled by our mind. It’s all labeled by our mind, but it’s not there, it doesn’t exist at all. We can dream of winning a billion dollars in a lottery, so we go there, we get a billion dollars, we […]
Whenever Buddha spoke he stressed the importance of making a personal investigation of his words and their meaning. Only when we are convinced that the teachings are accurate and applicable to our own lives should we adopt them. If they fail to convince us, they should be put aside. He compared the process of testing […]
If you exaggerate the value of external objects, thinking that they are the most important things in life, you ignore your inner beauty and internal joyful energy; if you look only outside of yourself, you neglect your most precious human qualities — your intellect and your potential to communicate in higher ways. Thus, meditation shows […]
I want you to understand clean clear that we distinguish two things: negative, or sinful, and positive. Attachment, or desire, can be negative and sinful, but it can also be positive. The positive aspect is that which produces pleasure: samsaric pleasure, human pleasure — the ability to enjoy the world, to see it as beautiful, […]
Throughout your Dharma practice you must never push yourself, but on the contrary you should try to be at ease and to do only what is possible at the moment. If you push yourself beyond your capacity you may shock your entire nervous system, thus producing an extremely negative reaction; you may even give up […]
The Buddhist attitude is that it doesn’t matter how many delusions you have, how confused you are, how much sin or negativity you have created, it is possible, absolutely possible, to totally eradicate all of it. Lama Yeshe
Buddhism places prime importance on personal experimentation, putting Dharma methods into action and assessing the effect they have on our minds: Do these methods help? Has your mind changed or is it just as uncontrolled as it ever was? Buddhism works by giving you ideas that you can check out in your own experience to […]
As Lama Je Tsongkhapa said, when you have bodhicitta all the good things in life are magnetically attracted to you and pour down upon you like rain. At present all we attract is misfortune because all we have is the self-cherishing thought. But with bodhicitta we’ll attract good friends, good food, good everything. Lama Yeshe
Why is bodhicitta necessary for success in meditation? Because of selfish grasping. If you have a good meditation but don’t have bodhicitta, you will grasp at any little experience of bliss: ‘Me, me; I want more, I want more.’ Then the good experience disappears completely. Grasping is the greatest distraction to experiencing single-pointed intensive awareness […]
What is important to understand is that the view you have of yourself and the view you have of your environment are based on your own mind: they are a projection of your mind and that is why they are not reality. I will give you a good example. When a French man or woman […]
There’s a big difference between being able to explain religion intellectually and transforming that knowledge into spiritual experience. Lama Yeshe
The method of Lord Buddha’s teachings is to show you the nature of the human mind, your human potential and how you can develop further. Moreover, this method does not emphasize blind belief in, rather than understanding of, metaphysical processes. However, whether you are religious or non- religious, or a believer or a non-believer, the […]
Your up and down emotions are like clouds in the sky; beyond them, the real, basic human nature is clear and pure. Lama Yeshe
You must recognize that your real enemy, the thief who steals your happiness, is the inner thief, the one inside your mind, the one you have cherished since beginningless time. Therefore, make the strong determination to throw him out and to never let him back in. Lama Yeshe
We are not compelled to meditate by some outside agent, by other people, or by God. Rather, just as we are responsible for our own suffering, so are we solely responsible for our own cure. We have created the situation in which we find ourselves, and it is up to us to create the circumstances […]
Meditation is not on the level of the object but on that of the subject – you are the business of your meditation. Lama Yeshe
Buddhism isn’t some fanatical religious trip. It’s a philosophical way of living life. And also, to study Buddhism you don’t need to believe in something extreme. It’s a matter of investigating, examining and experimenting on yourself. It’s not just belief. Without understanding, belief can be very dangerous. So what Lord Buddha emphasized was that understanding […]
I hope that you understand what the word ‘spiritual’ really means. It means to search for – to investigate – the true nature of the mind. There’s nothing spiritual outside. My rosary isn’t spiritual; my robes aren’t spiritual. Spiritual means the mind and spiritual people are those who seek its nature. Lama Yeshe
If your spiritual practice and the demands of your everyday life are not in harmony, it means there’s something wrong with the way you are practicing. Your practice should satisfy your dissatisfied mind while providing solutions to the problems of everyday life. If it doesn’t, check carefully to see what you really understand about your […]
By eliminating the self-pitying imagination of ego, you go beyond fear. All fear and other self-pitying emotions come from holding a self-pitying image of yourself. Lama Yeshe
