Legs and eyes ~ Tenzin Palmo

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. So we need both to travel the path to enlightenment.

Tenzin Palmo

Opposite direction to dharma ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

However beneficial a practice appears to be, however politically correct or exciting, if it does not contradict your habit of grasping at permanence, or looks harmless but insidiously encourages you to forget the truth of impermanence and the illusory nature of phenomena, it will inevitably take you in the opposite direction to dharma.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Right in front ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

If you have devotion, the Buddha is always right in front of you.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Empty of Coming and Going ~ Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche

When our hands rub two sticks together, that produces a fire that will eventually cease, but this fire does not come from anywhere to the sticks when it first begins to burn them, and does not go anywhere when it goes out. Fire is empty of coming and going.
Similarly, ignorance, clinging to the belief in self, mental afflictions, and suffering do not come from anywhere and they do not go anywhere.
We can apply this to the experience of dreams as well and see that whatever appears in dreams, whatever happiness or suffering, it does not come from anywhere and it does not go anywhere. In the very same way, all phenomena are empty of coming and going.

Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche

Join the dance ~ Alan Watts

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Alan Watts

Life flows away, inexorably ~ Padmasambhava

As a river rushes to the sea,
As the sun and moon glide across the mountains of the west,
As days and nights, hours and moments flee,
Life flows away, inexorably.

Padmasambhava

Intellectualization ~ Shunryu Suzuki

As soon as you see something,
you already start to intellectualize it.
As soon as you intellectualize something,
it is no longer what you saw.

Shunryu Suzuki

Not feeling totally at the mercy of one’s emotion ~ Kalu Rinpoche

One does not have to feel totally at the mercy of one’s emotion. It is only when acquiescing to the emotion, or investing the emotion with the falsehood of reality, that one is forced to play out the consequences.

Kalu Rinpoche

The moon of bliss ~ 17th Karmapa

Treasury of mind, this young white moon is brilliant with the signs and marks.
An aural ambrossia thrums a sweet melody of the teachings that mature and free.
May a gladding rain of nectar from this moon of great bliss
Bring auspicious splendor above, below, and upon this earth.

17th Karmapa

Entering the Dharma Gate ~ Milarepa

Though grief in the Ocean of Samsara
Is preached, and its renunciation is urged,
Few people are really convinced
And renounce it with determination.
Though knowing that life will ever turn to death,
Few feel uneasy, or think that it will end.
Though their life is blessed with good prospects,
Few can practice abstention for a day.
Though the Bliss of Liberation is expounded
And Samsara’s pains are stressed,
Few can really enter the Dharma Gate.
Though the profound Pith-Instructions
Of the Whispered Lineage are given without stint, few
Without fail can practice them.
Though the teaching of Mahamudra is expounded
And the Pointing-out demonstration is exercised,
Few can really understand the Essence of Mind.
To the hermit’s life and the Guru’s wish
One can always aspire, but few
Can put them into practice.
The perfect, skillful path of Naropa
May be shown, without concealment,
But those who can really follow it
Are very few. My dear lad,
You should follow in my footsteps
If in this life you want to do
Something that is worthwhile.

Milarepa

Distractions ~ Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

What is keeping me away from what I want to do as a practitioner? We must ask ourselves this question. Great practitioners of the past would not have the distractions that we have, however noble these aims of ours seem, because those practitioners took impermanence so deeply to heart.
So we must address honestly all the attachments that keep us distracted. And if we look, with attachments there is always a sense of being bound to a burden, again, however noble. This is not about getting rid of our attachments; nor do we plan to. It’s OK to have attachments; we all do.
But as a responsible practitioner, we must look at our attachments in the context of the precious human birth, impermanence, and what we would like to accomplish as a practitioner. Then make aspirations and contemplate how we want to use the time ahead.

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Just chattering ~ Ajahn Chah

I am like a tree in a forest. Birds come to the tree, they sit on its branches and eat its fruits. To the birds, the fruit may be sweet or sour or whatever. The birds say sweet or they say sour, but from the tree’s point of view, this is just the chattering of birds.

Ajahn Chah

Know that mind is the unity of clarity and emptiness ~ Mipham Rinpoche

The manifold mind, like a dream and an illusion,
Has no nature when analyzed;
All perceptions have the nature of the moon reflected in water.
Know that mind is the unity of clarity and emptiness.
When this is not merely conceptually determined, but
Comes to be understood within self-awareness, then
The wisdom body of all the buddhas –
The essential nature of the Dharma, the innate mind, and
The definitive meaning of the youthful Manjushri –
Is directly seen by nonconceptual awareness.

Mipham Rinpoche

The whole purpose of religion ~ 14th Dalai Lama

The whole purpose of religion is to facilitate love and compassion, patience, tolerance, humility, and forgiveness.

14th Dalai Lama

The one called noble ~ Buddha Shakyamuni

One is not called noble who harms living beings. By not harming living beings one is called noble.

Buddha Shakyamuni

All-encompassing spontaneity ~ Saraha

Though the house-lamps have been lit,
The blind live on in the dark.
Though spontaneity is all-encompassing and close,
To the deluded it remains always far away.

Saraha

As long as space exists ~ Shantideva

For as long as space exists
And sentient beings endure,
May I too remain,
To dispel the misery of the world.

Shantideva

At least until you die ~ Pema Chödron

If we continue to practice this way over the months and years, we will feel our hearts and minds grow bigger. When people ask me how long this will take, I say, ‘At least until you die.

Pema Chödron

The union of samsara and nirvana ~ Padmasambhava

When samsaric existence is freed in itself, there is no awakened state to accomplish apart form that. Once you realize this, samsara and nirvana are not two.