17th KarmapaSometimes harsh words must be said in order to help someone, but generally when we speak harshly, it is because we are angry, and it does not help. It is difficult to speak harsh words with love and compassion. In these situations, we can take ourselves as an example. Putting ourselves in someone else’s place, we ask, “If someone said these words to me in that way, how would I feel?” When we truly think of others, we will find some part of them that resembles us, because every one of us experiences pleasure and pain. Before we act or speak, thinking of others as similar to us is quite useful.
Being of Benefit ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaBy meditating on happiness for others, our own mind knows happiness, and eventually we will be able to benefit others as well. There is a direct correlation between helping others and the extent of our practice. As far as our practice to assist others goes, so far will its benefits and results reach.
Taming Our Mind ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaWhat is the definition of practice? Taming our mind. Those of us who are supposed to be practicing Dharma should carefully examine ourselves – our body, speech, and mind – and become mindful of what we are doing. Otherwise, it is quite possible that although we have the form of a practitioner, we are not really practicing Dharma.
Watching carefully to find our own faults, however, does not mean that we have to look down on ourselves or feel that we are worse than others. We do not have to throw ourselves into the river. This is too extreme. What it does mean is that practicing the Dharma is like learning how to dance. When we are learning how to move our arms and legs, we can practice in a room full of mirrors. Seeing our reflection directly, we observe how we are doing even before someone else tells us what is wrong. We all have faults – that is natural and not surprising. We also know how to improve, because we know, or can learn, what to correct and change. Further, we realize that what we are doing is for our own benefit. So if we find some faults or mistakes that we need to change, there is nothing wrong with us; these are just what we need to work on. This is what is meant by “taming our mind.”
Flat tires are part of the journey ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaThere is a problem in thinking that you are supposed to be advancing in your practice all the time. You don’t have to constantly be on the road. If you have a flat tire, that is also part of the journey. Ambition makes you feel that you are not doing anything. There seems to be a hypnotic quality to ambition and speed, so that you feel that you are standing still just because you want to go so fast. You might actually be getting close to your goal.
Compassion ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaCompassion has nothing to do with achievement at all. It is spacious and very generous. When a person develops real compassion, he is uncertain whether he is being generous to others or to himself because compassion is environmental generosity, without direction, without “for me” and without “for them”. It is filled with joy, spontaneously existing joy, constant joy in the sense of trust, in the sense that joy contains tremendous wealth, richness.
The Absence of Aggression ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaWhen we reach the state of nonaggression, it is not that we cease to perceive anything, but we begin to perceive in a particular way. With the absence of aggression, there is further clarity, because nothing is based on anxiety and nothing is based on ideas or ideals of any kind. Instead, we are beginning to see things without making any demands. We are no longer trying to buy or sell anything to anybody. It is a direct and very personal experience.
Egohood ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaEgohood is the state of mind in which you are either repelled or attracted to the phenomenal world. What you would like to see depends on your mentality, on what you think is desirable in order to maintain your “I am-ness,” your “me-ness.”
Finding yourself in the middle of a living situation ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaThe technique of meditation is the way to just do it. In meditation, life exposes itself to you, so you find yourself in the middle of a living situation. This requires an intuitive approach. Using your intuition in this way requires a positive attitude, a conviction that you are a basically healthy person and you are not condemned. Despite the shadow or the projections that may be cast on you, the point is to see through the shadow and just do it and live it. That is intuition.
Direct expansion of the heart ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheThe Buddhist understanding of compassion is, in some ways, a bit different from the ordinary sense of the word. For Buddhists, compassion doesn’t simply mean feeling sorry for other people. The Tibetan term – nying-jay – implies an utterly direct expansion of the heart.
Just as clouds ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheAnger might seem extremely strong, but where does it get the power to overwhelm you so easily? Is it some external force, something with arms and legs, weapons and armor? If not, then is it somewhere inside you? If so, where is it? Can you find it in your brain, in your heart, in your bones, or in any other part of You? Impossible though it is to locate, anger does seem to be present in a very concrete way, a strong clinging that freezes your mind into a state of solidity and brings a great deal of suffering both to yourself and to others. Just as clouds, too insubstantial to support your weight or be worn as clothing, can nevertheless darken the whole sky and cover the sun, so in the same way thoughts can obscure the pristine radiance of awareness. By recognizing the void, transparent nature of mind, let it return to its natural state of freedom.
Fundamental optimism ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaThe courage to work with ourselves comes as basic trust in ourselves, as a sort of fundamental optimism. In the beginning, you act like a warrior, and then you actually become brave.
Look ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaLook. This is your world! You can’t not look. There is no other world. This is your world; it is your feast. You inherited this; you inherited these eyeballs; you inherited this world of color. Look at the greatness of the whole thing. Look! Don’t hesitate – look! Open your eyes. Don’t blink, and look, look – look further.
Unfettered mind ~ Pema Chödron
Pema ChödronIf your mind is expansive and unfettered, you will find yourself in a more accommodating world, a place thats endlessly interesting and alive. That quality isnt inherent in the place but in your state of mind. The warrior longs to communicate that all of us have access to our basic goodness and that genuine freedom comes from going beyond labels and projections, beyond bias and prejudice, and taking care of each other.
The foundation of our happiness ~ 14th Dalai Lama
14th Dalai LamaIt is my fundamental conviction that compassion – the natural capacity of the human heart to feel concern for and connection with another human being – constitutes a basic aspect of our nature shared by all human beings, as well as being the foundation of our happiness. All ethical teachings, whether religious or nonreligious, aim to nurture this innate and precious quality, to develop it and to perfect it.
A fundamental sense of opportunity ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaWhen Buddhism talks about emptiness, it is not talking about a type of non-existence whatsoever, but rather the teachings on emptiness point to the notion of possibility, that anything can happen. The teachings on emptiness are about a fundamental sense of opportunity that is a part of reality, a fundamental presence of a gap or a space in which anything can occur. So this is the basic notion behind the Buddhist teachings on emptiness and dependent arising. And these teachings on dependent arising are present in all of the different vehicles in Buddhism, both the greater vehicle and the foundational vehicle.
Continuous dissatisfaction ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaWhether we eat, sleep, work, play, whatever we do life contains dissatisfaction, pain. If we enjoy pleasure, we are afraid to lose it; we strive for more and more pleasure or try to contain it. If we suffer pain we want to escape it. We experience dissatisfaction all the time. All activities contain dissatisfaction or pain, continuously.
Mental afflictions are our friends ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheEvery mental affliction is actually the basis of wisdom. If we get caught up in our afflictions or try to repress them, we just end up creating more problems for ourselves. If, instead, we look at them directly, the things we fear will kill us gradually transform into the strongest supports for meditation we could ever hope for. Mental afflictions are not enemies. They are our friends.
Delusion ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheWhat is delusion? How shall we define it? It is just as when a madman runs outside on a cold winter’s day and jumps into the water to wash himself, too deranged to realize that his body is being frozen. We think that such a man is insane, but in exactly the same way, when a Bodhisattva, clear-minded and undeceived, looks at us, our activities seem to him as demented as those of the lunatic! We should be quite convinced that we are thoroughly deluded and that when things appear to us the way they do, separate from our minds, they do not possess the slightest degree of reality in themselves. But what is it that creates this illusion? It is the mind, and it does so when it takes as real that which is illusory and non-existent. Nevertheless, we should clearly understand that such delusion is actually quite distinct from the mind in itself, the Buddha-nature or Sugatagarbha; it is not something, therefore, which it is impossible for us to remove.
Birth and death ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaNurtured by my mother’s love and warmth,
I stepped anew into this human world.
Its limitless and ever-changing marvels
I pursued with a restless, grasping mind,
tasting joy, sorrow, laughter, and anguish.
At the end of my days, once again,
I must pass into a state of dissolution.
This is the nature of the world of samsara.
The ambition to improve ourselves ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaMany people make the mistake of thinking that since ego is the root of suffering, the goal of spirituality must be to conquer and destroy ego. They struggle to eliminate ego’s heavy hand but that struggle is merely another expression of ego. We go around and around trying to improve ourselves through struggle, until we realize that ambition to improve ourselves is the problem.