Death comes suddenly ~ Shunryu Suzuki

One morning at the end of zazen, Suzuki spoke to the students still facing the wall, repeating an old theme with a new twist: “When you hear the wake-up bell, you should jump out of bed right away. You shouldn’t lie there. Otherwise, how can you ever face death, which always comes suddenly? But don’t jump out of bed the way I did this morning. I knocked over my kerosene lamp.”

Shunryu Suzuki

The path of healing and wholeness ~ Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche

We need to travel on the path of healing and wholeness. That will take time. We may start out expecting quick relief from samsaric suffering. When that is not forthcoming, we may become disappointed, resentful, or indignant. We may even rail against the Dharma or abuse it. We cannot digest the powerful medicine of the Dharma in one dose, but as we treat ourselves in a stepwise fashion, our capacity to absorb Dharma increases. Then we can take — and ought to take — more and more powerful doses. When we can do that, we soon come to see the Dharma’s true potency and its healing power. It is the most powerful medicine for counteracting dukkha.

Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche

Like a treasure hidden from sight ~ Gyaltsab Rinpoche

The Buddha had the insight to recognize that in essence all beings have the same potential to become equally realized, and to become fully awakened Buddhas. The Buddha saw that the potential of sentient beings is like a treasure hidden from sight. Unfortunately, we continually fail to recognize this potential, or Buddhanature as it is called, buried within each of us. Because of our habitual patterns and bewilderment, we find ourselves constantly involved with and entertained by the superficial appearances of pleasure and happiness. For instance, we usually think of increased popularity and fame or the accumulation of material wealth as sources of happiness. The Buddha pointed out that these aspects of the relative phenomenal world are perpetually subject to change, deceptiveness, and impermanence. As a result, while it is possible to be temporarily entertained or distracted, we constantly meet with obstacles and limitations in our pursuit of transitory pleasures. This is due to our failure to direct our efforts toward the unraveling of our own confusion and bewilderment.

Gyaltsab Rinpoche

When we ignore our interdependence ~ 17th Karmapa

Viewing ourselves through the lens of interdependence brings certain qualities and values into focus. For example, when we hold to a sense of ourselves as utterly independent, we can come to believe and behave as if we were entirely self-made, as if our own individuality called together all the conditions needed to bring us into being. This can lead to false pride and overbearing arrogance, as if we independently created our own individuality and owe nothing to anyone. When we ignore our interdependence, we are disregarding the importance of others to our well-being. We devalue their contributions to who we are. This kind of pride is a symptom of narrow view. It is a harmful delusion that can seriously impair our ability to relate in healthy way to others.

17th Karmapa

The importance of mind ~ Mingyur Rinpoche

Our mind is very important and all our experiences of happiness and unhappiness arise in the mind. So if we can train our minds then happiness will arise naturally. This happiness is real lasting peace which you will have in the external environment as well as in your inner mind.

Mingyur Rinpoche

A longing to help ~ Pema Chödron

Bodhi means “awake” and citta means “heart-mind.” Bodhicitta is a longing, a yearning, that comes to fortunate people to wake up, and specifically to wake up so they can be of help to other people and to the earth. It’s very common that people want to be free of suffering and go about it in ways that just increase their suffering. But it’s less common for people to want to be free of suffering because they really have a longing to help.

Pema Chödron

Concern for others versus interest in ourselves ~ Thrangu Rinpoche

If we consider the buddhas, their main concern is others, not themselves; they always act to help other beings, and we can see all the qualities this brings. The opposite would be people like us, ordinary beings in the world, who are only interested in ourselves; we are very egocentric and only concerned with ourselves. Look at the mess this has put us in.

Thrangu Rinpoche

Fruit is born of every act ~ Buddha Shakyamuni

When the time arrives — even if
A hundred eons pass —
Fruit is born of every act
That sentient beings amass.

Buddha Shakyamuni

At your feet I bow ~ Patrul Rinpoche

Understanding that samsaric activities are empty of meaning,
With great compassion, you strive only for the benefit of others.
Without attachment to samsara or nirvana, you act according to the Great Vehicle.
Peerless Teacher, at your feet I bow.

Patrul Rinpoche

Merely set up by conceptuality ~ 14th Dalai Lama

Sometime during the early sixties when I was reflecting on a passage by Tsongkhapa [founder of the Gelugpa school to which the Dalai Lama belongs] about unfindability and the fact that phenomena are dependent on conceptuality, it was as if lightning coursed within my chest. Here is the passage:
A coiled rope’s speckled color and coiling are similar to those of a snake, and when the rope is perceived in a dim area, the thought arises, “This is a snake.” As for the rope, at that time when it is seen to be a snake, the collection and parts of the rope are not even in the slightest way a snake. Therefore, that snake is merely set up by conceptuality.
In the same way, when the thought “I” arises in dependence upon mind and body, nothing within mind and body—neither the collection which is a continuum of earlier and later moments, nor the collection of the parts at one time, nor the separate parts, nor the continuum of any of the separate parts—is in even the slightest way the “I.” Also there is not even the slightest something that is a different entity from mind and body that is apprehendable as the “I.” Consequently, the “I” is merely set up by conceptuality in dependence upon mind and body; it is not established by way of its own entity.
The impact lasted for a while, and for the next few weeks whenever I saw people, they seemed like a magician’s illusions in that they appeared to inherently exist but I knew that they actually did not. That experience, which was like lightning in my heart, was most likely at a level below completely valid and incontrovertible realization. This is when my understanding of the cessation of the afflictive emotions as a true possibility became real.

14th Dalai Lama

Behind fear there is a soft spot ~ Pema Chödron

There is a teaching that says that behind all hardening and tightening and rigidity of the heart, there’s always fear. But if you touch fear, behind fear there is a soft spot. And if you touch that soft spot, you find the vast blue sky. You find that which is ineffable, ungraspable, and unbiased, that which can support and awaken us at any time.

Pema Chödron

Noble Heart ~ Chögyam Trungpa

The bodhisattva just acts according to the true, present moment, through which he develops a kind of warmth. And there is a great warmth in this awareness and also great creativity. His actions are not limited by anything and all sorts of creative impulses just arise in him and are somehow exactly right for that particular moment. Things just happen and he simply sails through them, so there is a continual, tremendous creativity in him. That is the real act of Karuna – a Sanskrit word which means ‘Noble Heart’ , or ‘Compassionate Heart’.

Chögyam Trungpa

Never be apart from dharma ~ Patrul Rinpoche

Each instant, put your heart into it again.
Each moment, remind yourself again.
Each second, check yourself again.
Night and day, make your resolve again.
In the morning, commit yourself again.
Each meditation session, examine mind minutely.
Never be apart from dharma, not even accidentally.
Continually, do not forget.

Patrul Rinpoche

Can the Dead Talk to the Living ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

You will probably be able to see the living for a few days after you die and may even try to make contact with them. In practice, the dead rarely interact successfully with the living and eventually are unable to see the living at all.
One of the most painful experiences suffered by bardo beings is the sudden loss of the kind of social interaction they were used to while they were alive. They feel lost, abandoned and very lonely.
This is one of the reasons why the motivation and actions of the living are so important, especially when it comes to the distribution of the dead person’s money, resources and belongings.
The dead probably only react strongly to the living when they are provoked. But extreme emotions are very dangerous for dead people and if the bardo being were to get angry because a loathed cousin had taken possession of a much-loved leather attaché case, that flash of emotion could have the power to block the dead person’s progress through the karmic bardo of becoming and may even cause them to get stuck as a negative spirit. If that were to happen, their bardo experience would not be limited to forty-nine days, it could last for aeons.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Impermanence dawning in your mind ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

When you think about samsara, if you feel as if you were aboard a sinking ship, as if you had fallen into a pit of deadly snakes, or as if you were a criminal about to be handed over to the executioner, these are sure signs that you have discarded the belief in the permanence of things. It is the authentic understanding of impermanence dawning in your mind.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

The essence of pure presence ~ Tulku Pema Rigtsal

Since the essence of pure presence is unchangeable, it is the fivefold body of buddha: the changeless vajrakaya, the manifest bodhikaya, the dharmakaya, the sambhogakaya, and the nirmanakaya.
Since the essence of pure presence is inexpressible, it is the fivefold buddha speech: the speech of bodhi-reality, the speech inseparable from the vajra, the speech of unborn meaning, the speech of meaningful symbol, and verbal speech.
Since the essence of pure presence is free of conceptual elaboration, it is the fivefold buddha mind: the mind of intrinsic awareness, mind of mirrorlike awareness, mind of awareness of sameness, mind of discriminating awareness, and mind of bodhi-accomplishing awareness.
Since the essence of pure presence accomplishes the nine wishes to completion, it possesses the manifest fivefold buddha-potential: it is the ground of every perfection and, more particularly, is the throne of the noble ones, pure and clear light, the boundless mansion, and a pure-land.
Since the four perfectly appropriate activities are accomplished in the same purity as primal awareness in the essence of pure presence, immaculate reality contains five buddhaactivities: pacification, enrichment, control, destruction, and spontaneity.

Tulku Pema Rigtsal

Compassion based on wisdom ~ 17th Karmapa

The great compassion taught in Buddhism is not merely an emotional response tinged with sadness or fear that comes and goes in response to a temporary situation. It is not superficial in this way but deep and, therefore, stable as well. This profound stability is due to our compassion being based on wisdom and reasoning. This compassion is not mere empathy or sympathy, not some kind of concern or affection. It is not saying, ‘I know what you’re going through.’ Or ‘I get your situation.’ It is also not coming from someone high up to someone low down. Actually, it is not the case that the person feeling compassion is in a good place and the other is down on their luck, so the one better off is bestowing their compassionate action on the unfortunate person down there.
Actually, true compassion makes little distinction between self and other. We naturally feel that we are a part of others and they are a part of us. We can feel their suffering one hundred percent or at least, really know a good deal of what it is like, and so we are able to take on all or most of their burden. This is the capacity we need to develop. It means that we feel little or no gap between ourselves and others; apprehending a self and an other is weak or nonexistent, for the sense of separation into two has faded away.