Dzongsar Khyentse RinpocheThere are three types of devotion: rational devotion, irrational devotion, and beyond rational and irrational devotion.
Saraha, the guru of the great Nagarjuna, defined devotion as trust in cause, condition, and effect — trust in the nature, the game, and the play of karma. This type of devotion is rational devotion.
Irrational devotion, though, has no basis in logic. It’s like believing in an almighty, truly existing god, or that the moon will speak to you, or that something does not exist because you haven’t seen it or heard it or because it doesn’t exist within your mind’s sphere or cannot be proven. Of course, we must avoid irrational devotion; this hardly deserves mention. But in the tantra, ultimately we must go beyond rational devotion as well, because in the tantra the basis of rationalism is very narrow and subjective and is always rooted in assumptions.
Having devotion that is beyond rational and irrational is unfathomable, especially in this day and age, in which rationalism is cherished, prized, and encouraged. But in the Vajrayana, as long as our devotion is bound by limited logic and reason, we will always have preferences, and we will reason our way out of devotion.
Experiencing the nature of your mind ~ Thrangu Rinpoche
Thrangu RinpocheWhen you experience the nature of your own mind, it is in itself, in its own nature, something that is extraordinarily peaceful, extraordinarily pleasant and blissful.
Our lives are interdependent ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaFor our life to have meaning, first we need a purpose, and this purpose should be long-term and enduring. It should not be aimed solely at the immediate future, nor should the purpose of our life be selfish. Our lives are interdependent. Our happiness arises through our interdependence with others, as does our suffering. Therefore, since our lives depend on one another, a meaningful life requires that we feel concern for others.
Empty and ready mind ~ Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu SuzukiYou should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty and ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.
Diligence ~ Jigme Lingpa
Jigme LingpaNo intelligence, no power, no wealth or strength can help someone without diligence – he is like a boatman whose boat has everything but oars.
The greatest of all mistakes ~ Sengcan
SengcanThe wise man strives to no goals
but the foolish man fetters himself.
There is one Dharma, not many;
distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with discriminating mind
is the greatest of all mistakes.
What makes us happy ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaIn my experience, we look down on what is ordinary and simple and are not content with it. We have the constant expectation that things should be better and more fancy, and we make things more complicated. However, in actual reality what makes us happy is simple and ordinary, in my view.
For example, it can be just breathing. Breathing is very ordinary and nothing special. But if we direct our attention to it and savour the experience, we can come to see that the simple act of breathing is absolutely amazing. The oxygen we need must come from outside us, from the plants and trees. We cannot survive without breathing; yet with absolutely no effort on our part, all the conditions we need are continually and naturally present. This is true not just for one breath, but for one after another. This alone can produce a tremendous sense of wonder, satisfaction and happiness.
The road to nonduality ~ Sengcan
SengcanOne thing, all things;
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about nonperfection.
To live in this faith is the road to nonduality,
because the nondual is one with the trusting mind.
Assertion and denial ~ Sengcan
SengcanThose who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality;
to assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.
Always before your eyes ~ Sengcan
SengcanEmptiness here, Emptiness there,
but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes.
No other understanding is necessary ~ Bankei Yotaku
Bankei YotakuDon’t hate the arising of thoughts or stop the thoughts that do arise. Simply realize that our original mind, right from the start, is beyond thought, so that no matter what, you never get involved with thoughts. Illuminate original mind, and no other understanding is necessary.
Hearing the Dharma ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Dzongsar Khyentse RinpocheIn order to purify the defilements, the teachings and blessings have to penetrate. The most accessible way for the blessings to penetrate is through hearing, so ordinary people are encouraged to listen to teachings. To this end, a guru who can provide accurate practical information is very important, even if he or she isn’t your root guru or tantric master. So, at least in the beginning, a guru with knowledge of the Dharma who is from a traditional, institutionalized path is a safe bet. Through hearing penetration, you acquire a tool to be penetrated by contemplation. And then gradually you develop the capacity to be penetrated by meditation.
Temples of Goodness and Compassion ~ 14th Dalai Lama
14th Dalai LamaThe purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.
The approach of mindfulness of life ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaThe approach of mindfulness of life is that if you are meditating in a room, you are meditating in a room. You don’t regard the room as a cave. If you are breathing, you are breathing, rather than convincing yourself you are a motionless rock. You keep your eyes open and simply let yourself be where you are. There are no imaginations involved with this approach. You just go through with your situation as it is. If your meditation place is in a rich setting, just be in the midst of it. If it is in a simple setting, just be in the midst of that. You are not trying to get away from here to somewhere else. You are tuning in simply and directly to your process of life. This practice is the essence of here and now. In this way, meditation becomes an actual part of life, rather than just a practice or exercise. It becomes inseparable from the instinct to live that accompanies all one’s existence. That instinct to live can be seen as containing awareness, meditation, mindfulness. It constantly tunes us in to what is happening.
Obstacles Create Fertile Ground for Practice ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Dzongsar Khyentse RinpochePractitioners sometimes endure long periods when their practice appears to have no effect on what seem to be particularly stubborn obstacles, and as a result assume their practice is not working. But they are wrong. With hindsight, they come to realise that the “obstacle” they so desperately wanted to eradicate was actually the best thing that ever happened them. This kind of turnaround is quite common, and with experience practitioners begin to appreciate that “bad” circumstances create a far more fertile ground for practice than “good” ones.
Just sitting and watching ~ Joseph Goldstein
Joseph GoldsteinMindfulness practice begins to open up everything. We open our mind to memories, to emotions, to different sensations in the body. In meditation this happens in a very organic way, because we are not searching, we are not pulling or probing, we are just sitting and watching.
The wonderful paradox about the truth of suffering ~ Joseph Goldstein
Joseph GoldsteinThe wonderful paradox about the truth of suffering is that the more we open to it and understand it, the lighter and freer our mind becomes. Our mind becomes more spacious, more open, and happier as we move past our avoidance and denial to see what is true. We become less driven by compulsive desires and addictions, because we see clearly the nature of things as they are.
Making friends with our emotions ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaWe need to get to know our emotions. Right now, they are strangers to us. When we come across them, sometimes we react as if we were being confronted by a bandit. Instead, we should make their acquaintance, and then gradually make friends with them or create a wholesome relationship with them. In the end, the fact that anger or some other emotion no longer arises is not a result of forcefully shutting it out, but a matter of very naturally or even joyfully coming to the point where you make friends with it and are naturally in control.
Look deeper ~ Ryokan
RyokanYou stop to point at the moon in the sky,
but the finger’s blind unless the moon is shining.One moon, one careless finger pointing –
are these two things or one?The question is a pointer guiding
a novice from ignorance thick as fog.Look deeper. The mystery calls and calls:
No moon, no finger – nothing there at all.
Our child Buddha ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaWe tend to think of the Buddha as someone with great powers – a kind of Superman with superpowers who will come to protect us and save us when something terrible happens. But who is the real superhero? You are. Superman is not the Buddha. You are. Who is your protector? You are. What is your greatest power? It is the power of your noble motivations. Karmic cause and effect teaches us that each one of us is a person with tremendous power to change the world. Therefore, you should value yourself and trust in your own abilities. This is a key point in order to be able to take up great responsibilities, through your noble aims and intentions.
For this reason, we should not always be expecting something outside ourselves to intervene, as if we were entreating the buddhas and bodhisattvas, “Please bless me so that good things happen to me.” We make continual requests to the teacher or lama to grant us their blessings. But sometimes the lama’s battery is finished! So many people want to recharge from the lama that even the biggest battery can run down. There are also people who did something good in the past and now expect something good to be done to them.
I think it is very important not just to wait for the external buddhas and teachers. We also need to understand that we have an inner Buddha or an inner teacher. That means we need to be the ones who make the effort. We need to create the opportunities, or produce the good energy, without always waiting for someone to arrive and intervene from the outside. I think it is very important to produce this by yourself, because, actually, you are the Buddha. Not such an effective buddha, perhaps, but… a buddha, a small Buddha. Our Buddha is like a child, not yet grown up enough to do more, so we need to nurture our inner Buddha, our child Buddha.