Where do the wars, the capitalist corporate aggression, and greed beyond words all come from? They all come from the uncontrolled mind that dominates our speech, our thinking, and our actions. If we multiply that by seven billion we can see where the problem lies. We cannot just blame the politicians; we have to look […]
Instead of being angry, we cultivate loving-kindness and compassion starting with ourselves. If our heart inside is feeling happy and peaceful, what other people do is not going to worry us nearly as much. It is because we have this anger inside ourselves that we are not dealing with that makes everyone else an enemy. […]
Regarding fear, my best advice is not to be afraid of the fear. So rather than that, when these inner fears, anxieties and paranoia come, what we need to do is to allow them to arise and come to terms that this is fear and then welcome it. Give it some love and ask it […]
We all take ourselves a little bit too seriously. I always say that a good sense of humour is the seventh paramita. We should learn to laugh about ourselves in a kind way, not in a harsh way. Even if we keep falling down, it doesn’t matter, let’s keep going. Tenzin Palmo
The Dharma itself cannot fail us, because it is how things really are. It won’t fail us because the protection that the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha give is to the mind. How they protect our mind is what is explained in the verses to follow, which are concerned with how to use the adverse circumstances […]
Our minds are usually half asleep, and even though it seems as though we’re always thinking a lot and we’re very vital and present, in fact we are almost somnolent and robotic in our reactions. The whole point of meditation is to learn how to wake up, to develop greater clarity, to be more aware […]
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 […]
