Tulku Urgyen RinpocheIf our buddha nature is beyond delusion and liberation, can’t we also say that we are in essence primordially enlightened? We could possibly succeed in convincing ourselves with such a philosophical trick, but it’s not really true, because we have already strayed onto the path. If we had never fallen into confusion, we could rightfully claim to be primordially enlightened. But unfortunately it is too late to make that claim. Our precious wish-fulfilling jewel has already fallen into the stinking mud.
Primordial enlightenment means that ground and fruition are identical and there is no path of delusion to be cleared away. This is definitely different than the situation of us who have already strayed onto the path and therefore need to clear away delusion in order to reach fruition. Take the example of a myriad of jewels: some are covered with mud, some are clean. All of them are jewels, but each one is distinctly individual. Sentient beings’ minds cognize individually, so we have to say that they are separate.
This is quite a good example, to view all beings and buddhas as countless jewels, some covered with dirt, some clean. They are not identical even though they have the same qualities. If the minds of all sentient beings were one, then when one individual attains enlightenment, everybody else would be liberated at the same moment. But if you attain enlightenment it doesn’t mean that I will be enlightened. Understand it this way: although beings have similar qualities, we are not one. We have the same essence, which is empty and cognizant, but our form of manifestation is separate, distinct from that of another sentient being.
If I recognize buddha nature and attain enlightenment it doesn’t mean that another person also recognizes and attains enlightenment. Sorry about that! If beings shared both the same essence and manifestation, when one reached enlightenment everyone else would too. We are like pure gold scattered in different places: equal quality, but separate pieces. Likewise with water: the properties of water are identical, but there is water in many diverse locations in this world. Or think of space inside our different houses – the same space but with various shapes. The empty cognizance is identical, but the ‘form’ around it is distinctly individual. Some jewels were lucky, others fell in the mud.
Not alone ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheThere’s an old story, told in several sutras, about a woman who had suffered the death of her young son. She refused to believe that her son was dead, however, and ran from house to house in the village asking for medicine to revive her child. Of course, no one could help her. The boy was dead, they pointed out, trying to help her accept the situation. One person, however, recognizing that her mind was deranged by grief, advised her to seek the Buddha — the most capable of physicians — who was staying in a monastery nearby. Grasping her child closely to her chest, she ran to where the Buddha was staying and asked him for medicine to help her child. The Buddha was in the middle of giving a talk in front of a large number of people; but the woman pushed through, and seeing her distress, the Buddha answered her request. “Go back to your village,” he advised, “and bring me back a few mustard seeds from a house where no one has ever died.” She ran back to her village and began asking each of her neighbors for mustard seeds. Her neighbors were happy to give them through an experience that cut deeper than words that she was not the only person in the world who had suffered a terrible personal loss. Change, loss, and grief were common to all. Though still grief stricken by the death of her son, she recognized that she was not alone and her heart cracked open. After the funeral ceremonies for her son were completed, she joined the Buddha and the disciples around him. She devoted her life to assisting others in achieving the same degree of recognition.
Five Stanzas on Love ~ Maitripa
MaitripaIf it weren’t for the adored bridegroom
Of appearance as mere dependent origination,
The loving bride of emptiness
Would be no better than dead.Emptiness is the most lovely bride,
A ravishing beauty beyond compare.
If he ever became separated from her,
That handsome bridegroom would be fettered in shackles.Therefore, trembling with anxiety,
Bride and bridegroom turn to the guru,
Whose inborn kindness for them
Places their love right back to its original, innate state.Ah, the genuine guru’s sagacity
And great skill are so wonderful
That those two become originally indivisible,
Nonreferential, and unsurpassable.This couple is endowed with the abundance of all characteristics
And is free from the two extremes.
It is the nature of all that is, yet lacks a nature of its own —
Thus it always flourishes.
A shift in attention ~ Kalu Rinpoche
Kalu RinpocheRegardless of the emotion being experienced — be it desire, anger, pride, jealousy, envy, greed, or whatever — what is really going on is a shift in attention. The mind is expressing itself in a different way. Nothing implicitly requires one to presume that this emotion has any reality in and of itself… It is just that the mind is expressing itself in a different way than it was a moment ago.
Your own impure projections ~ Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye
Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro ThayeDo not discuss the faults of others. Realize that their “faults” are actually your own impure projections.
Unclear intention ~ Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
Thinley Norbu RinpocheIf your intention is not clear, if you aren’t really weary of samsara, then going on retreat is just another game. Even if you stayed for your whole life, you would just be wasting time and you would not learn anything. Many animals spend their lives in caves or in the ground like groundhogs, just eating and shitting without practicing Dharma. The Buddha said that people who go on retreat without first understanding real Dharma have the solitude of a demon’s hook. The same is true for those who understand Dharma but have no intention of benefiting sentient beings, just wanting to go from samsara’s suffering to samsara’s vacation. When people who have spent time in solitude without understanding come out of retreat, only hair, beards, and fingernails are longer; otherwise, everything is the same. When they come out, they have more ego than before and they boast about their accomplishments with saintly pride or siddha arrogance.
Delight in positive deeds ~ Ringu Tulku
Ringu TulkuThe Buddhist notion of diligence is to delight in positive deeds.
Non-duality ~ Lama Yeshe
Lama YesheAll existing phenomena, whether deemed good or bad, are by nature beyond duality, beyond our false discriminations. Nothing that exists does so outside of non-duality. In other words, every existing energy is born within non-duality, functions within non-duality, and finally disappears into the nature of non-duality. We are born on this earth, live our lives and pass away all within the space of non-duality. This is the simple and natural truth, not some philosophy fabricated by Maitreya Buddha. We are talking about objective facts and the fundamental nature of reality, neither more nor less.
Internalising the teaching ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheImmerse yourself in the meaning of the teachings, day after day, month after month, and the spiritual qualities of a bodhisattva will develop without difficulty, like honey collecting in the hive as the bees go from flower to flower, gathering nectar.
The wonders of life ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat HanhLife is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough. We must also be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us and all around us, everywhere, any time.
Just that awareness that engages in all these activities ~ Garchen Rinpoche
Garchen RinpocheWe must understand that Buddha nature and its wisdom are inherent in our minds. It is extensively explained by many great scholars and masters, but it is very simple. It is just that awareness that engages in all these activities, worldly or dharmic. It is the one who thinks “I must do this, do that, go here or there,” or the scientists building planes and improving the world doing this and that. It is just that awareness engaging in all these activities and doing all these things that we must recognize.
If we ride the horse of self-grasping and merge the mind with self-grasping, we will only go down further and further into samsara — we will have to continue wandering in samsara. But if we ride the horse of loving-kindness and compassion we will go more and more through the enlightened qualities of the Buddha; the nirmanakaya, then the sambhogakaya, then the dharmakaya — we will go up to complete enlightenment.
Another example is like a big tree. The lower part, the roots, represents the lower realms and self-grasping, the pain of self-grasping. If there is self-grasping we will always abide at the lower part of the tree. But if we give rise to the altruistic mind then we go up to the higher parts of the tree — the branches, the foliage, the leaves, the flowers and fruits and so on. There is still just one tree, one single ground, but if we abide at the bottom we experience great suffering and great difficulty from the self-grasping mind, but if we go up we bring about the benefit of others and our own happiness. The basis, the ground, is a single one — buddha nature.
Conceiving of them as spiritual friends ~ Gyelse Tokme Zangpo
Gyelse Tokme ZangpoEven if others should expose my hidden faults or deride me
When speaking amidst great gatherings of many people,
To conceive of them as spiritual friends and to bow
Before them in respect — this is the practice of all the bodhisattvas.
One continuous mistake ~ Dogen Zenji
Dogen ZenjiA zen master’s life is one continuous mistake.
The business of a bodhisattva ~ Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche
Dzigar Kongtrul RinpocheThe sutras ask, where do the buddhas come from? And the answer in the sutras is, they come from ego. What does this mean? This means that realization comes from our ability to expand our sense of self-care and longing for happiness to include others. This is the business of a bodhisattva.
Loving-Kindness that is free from concepts ~ Tulku Thondup Rinpoche
Tulku Thondup RinpocheAccording to Buddhism, all existents abide in loving-kindness free from concepts in their absolute nature. But the understanding and realization of that true nature have been covered over by the webs of our own mental, emotional, and intellectual obscurations.
Now, in order to uncover the true nature and its qualities, we must dispel the cover — our unhealthy concepts, emotions, and actions. Through the power of devotion and contemplation, we must uncover and see the true innate enlightened qualities — loving-kindness that is free from concepts — shining forever.
Not designed to cheer you up ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Dzongsar Khyentse RinpocheThe aim of far too many teachings these days is to make people “feel good,” and even some Buddhist masters are beginning to sound like New Age apostles. Their talks are entirely devoted to validating the manifestation of ego and endorsing the “rightness” of our feelings, neither of which have anything to do with the teachings we find in the pith instructions. So, if you are only concerned about feeling good, you are far better off having a full body massage or listening to some uplifting or life-affirming music than receiving dharma teachings, which were definitely not designed to cheer you up. On the contrary, the dharma was devised specifically to expose your failings and make you feel awful.
Being without any distraction or grasping ~ Dudjom Rinpoche
Dudjom RinpocheMeditation consists of being attentive to such a state of rigpa, free from all mental constructions, whilst remaining fully relaxed, without any distraction or grasping. For it is said that ‘meditation is not striving, but naturally becoming assimilated into it.
You are Buddha in the making ~ Tai Situ Rinpoche
Tai Situ RinpocheI remind you that each one of you, all sentient beings, ultimately, right now, are in essence perfect, they are Buddha. The only thing is that they don’t realize this. They are not pretending to not realize, they sincerely and truly do not realize this, including me…. This way I thought to remind you about the same thing that helps me very much, by reminding myself. And I remind myself all the time, “You are not just Tai Situ, you are Buddha in the making. You are an unenlightened Buddha, a primordial Buddha. You are not as bad as you might think, but also you are not as good as you should be, very far from being as good as you should be.” So this helps me very much. This does not give me much chance to have any so-called depression, so-called stress, so-called pride or, so-called disappointment. When somebody does something terrible, I don’t like it, but then deep inside I think, why not? Because the person does not know he or she is a Buddha, then why not? When somebody does something wonderful I’m very happy. I’m very delighted. But deep inside I think, why not? He is a Buddha, she is a Buddha, so why not? This way it really benefits me personally, tremendously, and all the credit goes to my great masters because everything is because of them. So I am very happy to share this with you.
Returning to that place where you started with ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaIn terms of the nature of mind, the true nature of mind, I don’t know what I could say about that. It’s just there. Usually we think of the true nature of mind as something really high, and although I haven’t done a lot of practice in relation to the true nature of mind, if I speak from my own experience of this, I could say that eventually we will return to what we were bored with in the beginning and discover that was it.
So we start off by thinking that what we have right now is too simple, too ordinary. The true nature of mind must be something special, something high, something prettier than what we have now. And what we have now doesn’t really satisfy our desires, it’s not very attractive to us, but if you put some serious effort into your practice, then eventually I think that recognizing the true nature of mind means returning to that place where you started with — your boring unattractive, not new, not high, mental state — and actually recognize that it has been what you’re looking for.
Cooperating with one another ~ 14th Dalai Lama
14th Dalai LamaIn today’s interconnected and globalized world, it is now commonplace for people of dissimilar world views, faiths and races to live side by side. It is a matter of great urgency, therefore, that we find ways to cooperate with one another in a spirit of mutual acceptance and respect.