An autumn leaf ~ Chögyam Trungpa

An autumn leaf floating down a river doesn’t change its color, and it doesn’t struggle with the river. It goes along with it. This has a natural effect, because the brook or the river has never carried such an autumn leaf before. It takes people off guard when you don’t react to them. You don’t fight back when they attack you, but you just remain as an autumn leaf, whatever they do. This is the gentle way of working.

Chögyam Trungpa

An important source of closeness and love ~ 17th Karmapa

We can also experience a sense of closeness and connectedness to animals or to nature. I think the feelings of closeness we have towards the earth or to animals can be qualitatively the same as what we feel towards other human beings. In fact, it might actually be easier for us to feel close to animals or nature, precisely because we have made human relationships so complicated. Like human babies, animals are genuinely straightforward and authentic. Animals do not play the manipulative games that adult human beings have become so adept at playing with one another. They do not engage in that sort of pretense. We can train ourselves to shake the habits of deception and manipulation that creep into our human relationships, but this will take a conscious and concerted effort. With animals, we can experience that naturally, right now. For many people, their relationship to a pet can serve as an important source of closeness and love.

17th Karmapa

Indentifying the object of negation ~ Lama Tsongkhapa

In order to be sure that a certain person is not present, you must
know the absent person. Likewise, in order to be certain of the
meaning of “selflessness” or “the lack of intrinsic existence,” you
must carefully identify the self, or intrinsic nature, that does not
exist. For, if you do not have a clear concept of the object to be ne
gated, you will also not have accurate knowledge of its negation.
For Santideva’s Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds says:
Without contacting the entity that is imputed
You will not apprehend the absence of that entity.
There is limitless diversity among objects of negation, but they
come together at the root; when you refute this, you refute all ob
jects of negation. Moreover, if you leave some remainder, fail
ing to refute the deepest and most subtle core of the object of nega
tion, then you will fall to an extreme of true existence. You will cling
to the idea of real things, whereby you will not be able to escape
cyclic existence. If you fail to limit the object of negation and over
extend your refutation, then you will lose confidence in the causal
progressions of dependent-arising, thereby falling to a nihilistic
extreme. This nihilistic view will lead you to rebirth in a miserable
realm. Therefore, it is crucial to identify the object of negation care
fully, for if it is not identified, you will certainly develop either a
nihilistic view or an eternalistic view.

Lama Tsongkhapa

The three kayas ~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

Within the dharmakaya which pervades like space,
The sambhogakaya is distinctly manifest like the light of the sun,
And the nirmanakaya accomplishes the welfare of beings like a rainbow.

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

May our minds mingle with the Dharma ~ Patrul Rinpoche

I know all the details of karma, but I do not really believe in it.
I have heard a lot of Dharma, but never put it into practice.
Bless me and evil-doers like me
That our minds may mingle with the Dharma.

Patrul Rinpoche

Unbiased Spaciousness ~ Pema Chödron

Things happen to us all the time that open up the space. This spaciousness, this wide-open, unbiased, unprejudiced space is inexpressible and fundamentally good and sound. It’s like the sky. Whenever you’re in a hot spot or feeling uncomfortable, whenever you’re caught up and don’t know what to do, you can find someplace where you can go and look at the sky and experience some freshness, free of hope and fear, free of bias and prejudice, just completely open. And this is accessible to us all the time. Space permeates everything, every moment of our lives.

Pema Chödron

Conflicting emotions and excessive thinking ~ Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche

If we are honest with ourselves, we know from our own experience that the more we try to find solutions to our problems through thinking about them, the more we start going around in circles, sometimes interminably. Buddhism counsels us to resist being abused by our conflicting emotions and to let go of excessive thinking. Emotions can be expressed in an unhealthy, self-destructive manner or in a healthy and constructive fashion. Similarly, we can think in a self-destructive, confused way, which reinforces our negative habits, or we can think in a constructive way. Buddhism emphasizes that overindulgence in conflicting emotions and distorted forms of thinking only reinforces our old habits, which solidifies our karmic tendencies even further.

Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche

Vajrayana ~ Thrangu Rinpoche

In the teachings of the vajrayana, it is clearly taught that once someone attains full liberation, they do not become nothing. The process of purification finally reveals, and therefore there remains, an enduring wisdom that is of the nature of nonconceptual compassion.

Thrangu Rinpoche

Living one’s life within the ethical discipline ~ 14th Dalai Lama

How do we go about implementing in our daily lives the principles which are stipulated in the practice of the Six Perfections? Buddhism recommends living one’s life within the ethical discipline of observance of what are known as the Ten Precepts, or Avoidance of the Ten Negative Actions. Most of the Negative Actions are common denominators of all religious traditions. They are seen as negative or undesirable for society in general, regardless of any religious point of view.

14th Dalai Lama

The even state of all-pervading peace ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Once one has realized the nature of things, one no longer hopes to attain Buddhahood, neither is one apprehensive that one might not obtain it. One simply remains in the even state of all-pervading peace in which all notions of subject and object have been freed in their own sphere.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

The loving-kindness of the Buddha’s teaching ~ Gyaltsab Rinpoche

When Shakyamuni Buddha expounded his wisdom to people to show them the noble and profound ways they could conduct their lives, his intention was not to impress them with how much he knew or how well he could express himself. It was because of his infinitely compassionate concern for the benefit and liberation of all beings without exception, that he revealed the way of liberation from all suffering. Like the love of a mother who cherishes her only child, this was the loving-kindness of the Buddha’s teaching.

Gyaltsab Rinpoche

Within each one of us ~ Mingyur Rinpoche

Temples and stupas — buildings that house sacred relics — reflect the heart and mind of the Buddha. Respecting outside forms of Buddha nourishes our own innate wisdom. Yet the true buddha, the awakened essence of mind, exists within each one of us.

Mingyur Rinpoche

Inconceivability ~ Buddha Shakyamuni

You should see form like a man blind from birth, hear sounds as if they were echoes, smell scents as if they were like wind, experience tastes without any discrimination, touch tangible objects without there being in gnosis any contact, and know things with the consciousness of an illusory creature. That which is without a state of being self and a state of being other does not burn. And what does not burn will not be extinguished.

Buddha Shakyamuni

The miraculous tree of virtue combined with bodhichitta ~ Kangyur Rinpoche

The nature of the mind is primordially immaculate, and yet it is veiled by ignorance and defilement whereby samsaric action is engendered. Thus the virtue of ordinary beings is feeble and inconstant; it is like lightning that flashes briefly between the clouds in a dark black sky lit by neither sun nor moon.
Such virtue, practiced fitfully, produces mere merit and nothing more. After yielding its result, happiness in the divine or human realms, it is exhausted like the plantain, the castor-oil plant, or the bamboo cane, which bear their fruit and wither.
By contrast, the miraculous tree of virtue combined with bodhichitta is like a seed planted in fertile, well-farmed land. It brings forth a copious and proliferating harvest: the abundant happiness of the upper realms of samsara, which constantly increases until the peace of great enlightenment is attained.

Kangyur Rinpoche

Eating tasty but poisonous plants ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

We may enjoy some kind of temporary happiness in samsara, close inspection reveals that we have often achieved this happiness at the expense of others, or even through harming others, by cheating, stealing, and the like. In behaving like this, although we experience a fleeting happiness, at the same time we are creating causes for our future misery. It is like eating plants that are tasty but poisonous. We may savor them for a few moments, but soon afterward we will die. It is the same for all enjoyments that are linked with negative actions.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Keeping distance ~ Thrangu Rinpoche

Remember that the disturbing emotions of anger, delusion, pride and jealousy are not beneficial in the slightest, but are extremely harmful. Again and again they create problems for ourselves and others. Engender the attitude that, “It is a bad idea to continue like that. I should change.” This frame of mind does not totally eliminate our tendencies to be involved in disturbing emotions. Still it makes it easier not to leap directly into them the next time the opportunity arises. Hence the first step is called ‘keeping distance’.