14th Dalai LamaIt is crucial to be mindful of death – to contemplate that you will not remain long in this life. If you are not aware of death, you will fail to take advantage of this special human life that you have already attained. It is meaningful since, based on it, important effects can be accomplished.
Analysis of death is not for the sake of becoming fearful but to appreciate this precious lifetime during which you can perform many important practices. Rather than being frightened, you need to reflect that when death comes, you will lose this good opportunity for practice. In this way contemplation of death will bring more energy to your practice.
Intention to meditate ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheWhether your practice is good or not doesn’t really matter. The important point is the intention to meditate. That alone is enough.
Vivid support for meditation ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheBecause emotions tend to be vivid and enduring, they can be even more useful than thoughts as supports for meditation.
All it takes is a bit of practice ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheAll it takes to accomplish these marvels is a little patience, a little diligence, a little willingness to let go of conditioned ideas about yourself and the world around you. All it takes is a bit of practice in waking up in the middle of the dreamscape of your life and recognizing that there is no difference between the experience of the dream and the mind of the dreamer.
Just as the landscape of a dream is infinite in scope, so is your buddha nature.
The experience of meditation ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaThe practice of meditation is a way of unmasking ourselves, our deceptions of all kinds, and also the practice of meditation is a way of bringing out the subtleties of intelligence that exist within us. The experience of meditation sometimes plays the role of playmate; sometimes it plays the role of devil’s advocate, fundamental depression. Sometimes it acts as an encouragement for birth, sometimes as an encouragement for death. Its moods might be entirely different in different levels and stages of being and emotion, as well as in the experience of different individuals — but fundamentally, according to the Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, there is no doubt, none whatsoever, that mediation is the only way for us to begin on the spiritual path.
Use your thoughts instead of being used by them ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheWhen you don’t understand the nature and origin of your thoughts, your thoughts use you. When the Buddha recognized the nature of his mind, he reversed the process. He showed us how we use our thoughts instead of being used by them.
Accepting ourselves ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaWe are very critical of ourselves, to the point where we are even our own enemies. Meditation is a way of making up that quarrel, of accepting ourselves, making friends with ourselves. We find that we are not as bad as we have been told we are.
An immense sense of freedom ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaMahayana, the great path of wakefulness, provides an immense sense of freedom: freedom to think, freedom to react, and freedom to practice. Freedom to think means that we can work with the essence of buddha mind, with prajna, or discriminating awareness, and compassion. It means that we are free to use our insight, our basic existence, what we fundamentally are. Freedom to react is that we can go along with the emotionality of the practice of compassion. Freedom to accomplish is that we can practice in accordance with the disciplines of the first two types of freedom.
Bodhicitta is the medicine ~ 14th Dalai Lama
14th Dalai LamaBodhicitta is the medicine which revives and gives life to every sentient being who even hears of it. When you engage in fulfilling the needs of others, your own needs are fulfilled as a by-product.
Compassion is Being What You Are ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaWith genuine love and compassion, you just be what you are. If you can be what you are, external situations will become as they are, automatically. Then you can communicate directly and accurately. This is a balanced way of openness and communication, which automatically allows tremendous space, room for creative development, space in which to dance and exchange. The fundamental characteristic of true compassion is pure and fearless openness without territorial limitations.
Recognizing obstacles as opportunities ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheOnce you commit yourself to developing an awareness of your Buddha nature, you’ll inevitably start to see changes in your day-to-day experience. Things that used to trouble you gradually lose their power to upset you. You’ll become intuitively wiser, more relaxed, and more openhearted. You’ll begin to recognize obstacles as opportunities for further growth.
Peace of mind ~ 14th Dalai Lama
14th Dalai LamaWe need to pay greater attention to inner values. Of course we need material development, but we need to understand that by itself it doesn’t bring peace of mind. This can only be developed within the mind.
The truth of the spiritual path ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaLetting go is only possible for short periods. We need some discipline to bring us to “letting be.” We must walk a spiritual path. Ego must wear itself out like an old shoe, journeying from suffering to liberation. The truth of the spiritual path, the practice of meditation, is the Fourth Noble Truth taught by the Buddha.
Give up hoping for results ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheThe general effect of Mind Training is to free the practitioner from hope and fear. We should practise the exchange of happiness and suffering without expecting any reward. We should not hope, for example, that because of our practice many non—human beings will gather round, obeying us and displaying miracles, and that people, prompted by them, will also serve us, bringing us wealth and influence.
We should rid ourselves of all selfish ideas and ulterior motives, such as working for others but with the wish for our own individual liberation or rebirth in a pure realm.
Our Prayers and Aspirations ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaOur prayers and aspirations can reach far. We can see the light of stars that are thousands of light years away. Those stars may not even exist any longer, but the light they sent out can still travel and reach us here. The mind can travel even farther. There is no limit to where our aspirations can reach.
Constantly remembering the kindness of the guru ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaWild flowers extend everywhere
On mountain meadows filled with the sweet smell of
fragrant herbs.
Seeing the gentle deer frolicking from place to place,
I constantly remember the compassion and gentleness
Of the only father guru and the Great Eastern Sun.
Integrating your practice with whatever conditions you meet ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaThe practice of dharma is like exercising or carefully following a course of training, which is powerful and deeply significant. For example, if you are in the military, you train every day. In the same way, with the dharma, you have to train your mind daily. Not just to relax but to be able to relate to whatever is happening around you. You integrate your practice with whatever conditions you meet so that you are not carried away by them and do not lose your patience.
How to be a human being ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaSynchronizing mind and body is not a concept or a random technique someone thought up for self-improvement. Rather, it is a basic principle of how to be a human being.
Total lack of inhibition ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaJust fully being skillful involves total lack of inhibition. We are not afraid to be. We are not afraid to live. We must accept ourselves as being warriors. If we acknowledge ourselves as warriors, then there is a way in, because a warrior dares to be, like a tiger in the jungle.
Importance of the motivation ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheMotivation is the single most important factor in determining whether your experience is conditioned by suffering of by peace.