At any given moment, you can choose to follow the chain of thoughts, emotions, and sensations that reinforce a perception of yourself as vulnerable and limited, or to remember that your true nature is pure, unconditioned, and incapable of being harmed. You can remain in the sleep of ignorance, or remember that you are and always have been awake. Either way, you’re still expressing the unlimited nature of your true being. Ignorance, vulnerability, fear, anger, and desire are expressions of the infinite potential of your buddha nature. There’s nothing inherently wrong or right with making such choices. The fruit of buddhist practice is simply the recognition that these and other mental afflictions are nothing more or less than choices available to us because our real nature is infinite in scope.

Mingyur Rinpoche

from the book The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness

Read a random quote or see all quotes by Mingyur Rinpoche.

Further quotes from the book The Joy of Living:

• Oh, this is how my mind works
• Trying to do your best
• Neither rejecting nor accepting
• Nothing more than the natural function of the mind
• Thinking of yourself as limited
• The practice of simply observing
• Meditation on compassion
• What Buddhists mean by happiness
• Just observe it
• Setting the tone for your entire day
• Your mind just as it is
• Importance of the motivation
• Being diligent
• The best part of all
• Recognizing the inherent potential of your mind
• Essentially good
• An experience of absolute well-being
• The need to look at the mind
• Never disturbed
• Becoming aware