Welcome ~ Pema Chödron

Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. Why? Because it is all we ever have.

Pema Chödron

Ultimately perfect ~ Tai Situ Rinpoche

There is no sentient being who cannot improve and become enlightened eventually. This is so because every sentient being has buddha nature, regardless of the realm that sentient being belongs to. Every sentient being is ultimately perfect.

Tai Situ Rinpoche

Actually Walking the Path Buddha has Walked ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The majority of us only worship Siddhartha as a supreme sacred power with the ability to bless and to protect us from danger. Not many are able to walk the path he has walked, to handle suffering, generate happiness, reestablish communication and touch Nirvana in the present moment. Our Buddhism of today mostly is a Buddhism of devotion. What the Buddha advised us — to let go of such things as fame and sensual pleasures — we now ask him to grant us.

Practicing mindfulness, concentration and insight, walking the Noble Eightfold Path as the path of happiness in the present moment, has become only a very small part of Buddhism as it is practiced today. We did not inherit the most precious parts of the spiritual heritage that Siddhartha left. Our Buddhism has become corrupted, unable to play its original role. We need to put all our heart into renewing Buddhism, so that it can continue to play its role in generating peace for individuals, families, countries and societies. By only practicing devotional Buddhism, bowing our heads amidst incense all day long, we will not able to do that — and not be worthy to be called descendents of the Buddha — the Great Conqueror of Afflictions.

Thich Nhat Hanh

An absence of aggression ~ Chögyam Trungpa

If a person can really relate to the simplicity of the practice of meditation, then automatically there is an absence of aggression. Because there is no rush to achieve, you can afford to relax. Because you can afford to relax, you can afford to keep company with yourself, be friends with yourself. Then thoughts, emotions, whatever occurs in the mind, constantly accentuate the act of making friends with yourself.

Chögyam Trungpa

The strong wish for the bliss of liberation ~ Lama Tsongkhapa

Seeking samsaric pleasures is the door to all suffering;
They are uncertain and cannot be relied upon.
Recognizing these shortcomings,
Please bless me to generate the strong wish for the bliss of liberation.

Lama Tsongkhapa

Deeper and deeper ~ Dudjom Rinpoche

The more and more you listen, the more and more you hear; the more and more you hear, the deeper and deeper your understanding becomes.

Dudjom Rinpoche

Becoming a practitioner of Dharma ~ Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

If someone is to become a true student of Dharma, that person has to know that practice is an essential part of one’s life, intimately woven with one’s own experience. Of course we need to keep our jobs and our responsibilities, but none of these become essential. Rather, they become important in support of what we find most meaningful in life – becoming a practitioner of Dharma.

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Being nothing you are everything ~ Kalu Rinpoche

We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all.

Kalu Rinpoche

The natural joy of breathing ~ 17th Karmapa

Once I was going around the monastery and the weather was nice. I relaxed my mind and noticed that I was just breathing. I thought that’s not special, we always breathe, yet spontaneously, I thought how satisfactory this experience was—there was a natural joy in it. Taking one breath is a rather complex process; it depends on oxygen from trees, an elaborate system of exchange within the body, and so forth. And yet my experience of that one breath came without any effort, and I just thought, “It’s amazing that I’m alive now and can breathe so easily.” If I had had to think about creating oxygen, for example, it would have been very complicated. But I was simply happy because I could breathe. It all depends on how we think.

17th Karmapa

The way the body is ~ Ajahn Chah

Conditions don’t belong to us. They follow their own natural course. We can’t do anything about the way the body is. We can beautify it a little, make it look attractive and clean for a while, like the young girls who paint their lips and let their nails grow long, but when old age arrives, everyone is in the same boat. That is the way the body is. We can’t make it any other way. But, what we can improve and beautify is the mind.

Ajahn Chah

The soaring of the carefree yogin ~ Longchenpa

Hatching from the egg and flying away is like abandoning the corporeal shell in buddhahood;
the view of natural perfection is like a great garuda soaring in the empty sky;
the carefree yogin soars like a great garuda.

Longchenpa

Pain as an object of meditation ~ Mingyur Rinpoche

If we consider pain or discomfort as an object of meditation, we can use such sensations to increase our capacity for clarity, simply through watching the mind deal with various solutions.

Mingyur Rinpoche

Forever in flux ~ Pema Chödron

As human beings we share a tendency to scramble for certainty whenever we realize that everything around us is in flux. In difficult times the stress of trying to find solid ground — something predictable to stand on — seems to intensify. But in truth, the very nature of our existence is forever in flux. Everything keeps changing, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Pema Chödron

Aspire ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Aspire to create connections with people — even those who catch no more than a glimpse of your brightly coloured T-shirt in a crowd — that result in the seed of dharma being sown in their minds.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Trusting in yourself first ~ Chögyam Trungpa

Trust begins with trusting in yourself. When we talk about working with others, we are talking about working with ourselves to begin with. If we are ready to work with others, it doesn’t matter who comes along in our world. You might be working with somebody who is completely untrustworthy, but that doesn’t matter. We are going to help others, regardless of their workability. You have to work hard to help others.

Chögyam Trungpa

Dealing with our anger ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight… I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence.

Thich Nhat Hanh

This is very shortsighted ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Most people, thinking of the future, make a lot of plans — but the future they plan for is only the very few years of this life. This is very shortsighted; we have such a long way to go in lives to come. Death is just the threshold, which we have to cross alone, aided only by our faith in the teacher and the Three Jewels and by our confidence in the practice. Relatives, friends, power, wealth, and whatever else we have become so used to relying on will simply no longer be there.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Repaying the kindness ~ Albert Einstein

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

Albert Einstein

The forth reliance ~ Mipham Rinpoche

When taking the definitive meaning into experience,
Do not rely upon the ordinary dualistic mind
That chases after words and concepts,
But rely upon non-dual wisdom itself.

That which operates with conceptual ideas
Is the ordinary mind, whose nature involves perceiver and perceived.
All that is conceived in this way is false
And will never touch upon the actual nature of reality.

Any idea of real or unreal, both or neither —
Any such concept, however it’s conceived — is still only a concept,
And whatever ideas we hold in mind,
They are still within the domain of Mara.

This has been stated in the sutras.
It is not by any assertion or denial
That we will put an end to concepts.
But once we see without rejecting or affirming, there is freedom.

Although it is without any subject-object grasping,
There is naturally occurring wisdom that illuminates itself,
And all ideas of existence, non-existence, both and neither have ceased completely—
This is said to be supreme primordial wisdom.

[Forth reliance: Do not rely on the ordinary mind, but rely on wisdom.]

Mipham Rinpoche