Forget about non-duality. Understand duality and then from there, the mind will of itself open up into another level of consciousness. But if we don’t have mindful awareness every day, we’re never going to get primordial awareness, or if we do, we won’t be able to sustain it. So we have to start from where […]
I say that a sense of humour is the seventh paramita or the seventh spiritual quality on the path, because one of the problems of newcomers on the spiritual path is that we tend to take ourselves too seriously. Then, it all becomes too intense, and we become all very critical of both ourselves and […]
What we need is to be interested and to watch, but not interfere or be caught up in what we are thinking. Don’t think of the past, don’t anticipate the future, don’t get fascinated by the present. See it as it is. Just be there with it. A thought is just a thought. An emotion […]
One of my teachers said: “First hear and study, then you think about it and you become it.” And that’s the point: We go from head to heart and that transforms us. Then spontaneously, what we say, what we think, and what we do naturally arise from our understanding. Tenzin Palmo
Behind the movement of the conceptual mind is vast silent knowing. It is so simple. But we don’t believe it. And it is sad indeed that we miss it. We overlook the simplicity in front of us. Tenzin Palmo
Our culture finds this question of losing very difficult. It’s very good about getting. Our consumer culture, especially nowadays, is all about getting, getting, getting. We throw away those things which were fashionable yesterday but are no longer fashionable today to get something new. We don’t have that attitude, though, toward our own bodies or […]
We practice being able to stand back to see the thoughts, memories, feelings, and emotions as merely thoughts, memories, and feelings, as merely mental states, and not something solid or real. “Me” and “mine” are just mental states. Tenzin Palmo
What do people think spiritual development is? It’s not lights and trumpets. It’s very simple. It’s right here and now. People have this idea that Enlightenment and realization is something in the distance – a very fantastic and magnificent happening which will transform everything once and for always. But it’s not like that at all. […]
When we are angry, when we are excited, when we are depressed, when we are elated, we are completely submerged in and identified with those thoughts and feelings. This is why we suffer. We suffer because we are completely identified with our thoughts and feelings and we think this is me. This is who I […]
There have been times when my whole spiritual life was one great big question mark. But instead of suppressing the questions, I brought up the things I questioned and examined them one by one. When I came out the other end, I realized that it simply didn’t matter. We can be quite happy with a […]
If we come across certain things that we find difficult to accept even after careful investigation, that doesn’t mean the whole Dharma has to be thrown overboard. Even now, after all these years, I still find certain things in the Tibetan Dharma which I’m not sure about at all. I used to go to my […]
Once I’ve sorted myself out and really figured out who I am the I’ll be alright.” But years down the line people are still as messed up as ever. The problem is we’re identifying ourselves with the wrong thing. Identifying ourselves with the ‘I’ we solidify ourselves, but it’s also why people feel so lonely […]
It’s like a dance. And we have to give each being space to dance their dance. Everything is dancing; even the molecules inside the cells are dancing. But we make our lives so heavy. We have these incredibly heavy burdens we carry with us like rocks in a big rucksack. We think that carrying this […]
So the whole Buddhist path on one level can be a way of understanding how to loosen and eventually drop our desperate grasping at this sense of me. Right there at the center of the universe and definitely the big spider in the middle of the web that we are all weaving. Which we imagine […]
Our society is very result-oriented, that’s why we are so competitive. That’s why we are always stressed, because we are always looking at something in the distance. If you are always looking at the top of the mountain you are climbing, you cannot be aware of the grass and flowers growing at your feet. We […]
Everything which we see and everyone we relate to, we relate to from this tight box of our very limited judgements, prejudices, ideas, conceptions. It’s like we’re in a very small prison cell, dungeon really. And so we begin to start a new kind of direction in our lives … but the important thing is […]
Sometimes, even if the lama is sitting in front of you, you can feel there’s a thousand miles between you; likewise, you can be a thousand miles away and feel that the guru is right there sitting in your heart. Tenzin Palmo
We never actually perceive what is there, only what is related back to us through our senses. The reality perceived by a fly, with its very differently structured eye and antennae, is very different from the reality we perceive, but it is equally valid from the fly’s point of view. We don’t see things better […]
This endless film show is being played in our mind – moment to moment mind states – and that is projected out in front of us as our external reality. Now as long as we are fascinated by the movie in front of us, then we believe it and we become deeply involved in what […]
The other paramitas (generosity;ethics;patience;joyous effort and concentration) are the legs and wisdom is the eyes. And if we are trying to get to the goal, we’ve got the legs, but we can’t see where we are going but if we only have eyes and no legs, we also are not going to get very far. […]
