PadmasambhavaWhere the past has ceased and the future has not yet arisen,
In the unimpeded state of present wakefulness,
Rest in the manner of mind looking into mind.
No matter what thoughts may arise at this time,
They are all the display of the single mind essence.
As the nature of space is unchanging,
You will realize the all-pervasive mind essence to be changeless.
This is the Great Perfection, the ultimate of all vehicles,
The unexcelled meaning of the self-existing Mind Section.
The very essence of the Spiritual journey ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Dzongsar Khyentse RinpocheTo follow a Guru, you have to navigate so much. You have to wrestle with your instincts, go against your character and habits. You should realize that navigation through struggle is the very essence of the Spiritual journey: crossing mountains, valleys, rivers, and deserts in search of the answer. This is the Voyage that you have chosen to take. And the Guru will test if a student is ready for the profound teachings by assigning various difficult tasks.
Unspoken meaning ~ Ryokan
RyokanI sat facing you for hours but you didn’t speak;
Then I finally understood the unspoken meaning.
Removed from their covers, books lay scattered about;
Outside the bamboo screen, rain beats against the plum tree.
Controlled by circumstances ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Dzongsar Khyentse RinpocheTo find out whether or not you are controlled by circumstances and situations, there are myriad things you can do, such as skip lunch. If you are a man, wear a bra and walk around in public. If you are a woman, go to a fancy party in your bedroom slippers. If you are married, see if you can tolerate someone pinching your spouse’s bottom. See if you are swayed by praise, criticism, being ignored, or being showered with attention. If you get agitated, embarrassed, or infuriated, then more than likely you are still under the spell of the conditions of habit and culture. You are still a victim of causes and conditions.
Thinking ~ Ryokan
RyokanNow that all thoughts have subsided
off I go, deep into the woods,
and pick me
a handful of shepherd’s purse.
Just like the stream
meandering through mossy crevices
I, too, hushed
become utterly clear.
Tuning in to life ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaSince mindfulness is part of one’s stream of consciousness, the practice of meditation cannot be regarded as something alien, as an emulation of some picturesque yogi who has a fixation on meditating all the time. Seen from the point of view of mindfulness of life, meditation is the total experience of any living being who has the instinct to survive. Therefore meditating — developing mindfulness — should not be regarded as a minority-group activity or as some specialized, eccentric pursuit. It is a worldwide approach that relates to all experience: it is tuning in to life.
Freed from bondage ~ Sengcan
SengcanWith a single stroke we are freed from bondage;
nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
with no exertion of the mind’s power.
Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination are of no value.
In this world of Suchness
there is neither self nor other-than-self.
The shadow of our actions ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheWe were born alone and we will die alone. Yet even while alone we still have our shadow with us; and alone after death, our consciousness will still have with it the shadow of our actions, good and bad. By the time we are just about to enter the bardo, the intermediate state between death and birth, it will be far too late to begin our Dharma practice. But if we have already prepared ourselves, if we feel confident in our practice and know how to go to a Buddha-field, there will be no suffering in death.
Awareness is naturally liberated ~ Thrangu Rinpoche
Thrangu RinpocheThe nature of our mind is awareness, and awareness is naturally liberated. We do not need to do anything to it. We do not need to think of it as something to take up that we need more of, nor do we need to think of it as something bad to be blocked or suppressed. We should understand that it is naturally liberated.
Definitions have vanished ~ Sengcan
SengcanInfinitely large and infinitely small;
no difference, for definitions have vanished
and no boundaries are seen.
So too with Being and non-Being.
Waste no time in doubts and arguments
that have nothing to do with this.
Spiritual practice is like riding a bicycle ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Dzongsar Khyentse RinpocheSpiritual practice is a bit like riding a bicycle. Once you have learnt how to cycle there is no need to go over the theory behind how the gears work or the best height for your saddle every time you go for a ride. All you have to do is get on your bike and start pedalling. And the key to this practice is to do the best you can and don’t worry too much about whether what you are doing is right or wrong; eventually you will get the hang of it.
The spear of mindfulness ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheAlas for people in this age of residues!
The mind’s wholesome core of truth has withered, and people live deceitfully,
So their thoughts are warped, their speech is twisted,
They cunningly mislead others—who can trust them?In the golden age, the age of perfection, there was no need for sunlight or moonlight, for beings radiated light from their own bodies. They could move miraculously through space, and they lived without needing any solid food.
All creatures naturally abided by the ten virtues. But, as time passed, they began to harm each other, to be ruled by their desires, to steal, and to lie. They lost their natural radiance and had to depend on sun and moon for light; they lost their ability to fly; they began to need solid nourishment, and when eventually the spontaneous harvest and the bountiful cow disappeared, they had to toil to produce their food.
Now in our present epoch, all that remains of the qualities of the golden age are residues, like the unappealing left-over scraps of a sumptuous feast. Anyone with eyes of wisdom seeing the miserable condition of people in this decadent age cannot help but feel great compassion.
In this age of conflict people are ill intentioned and full of deceit. They put themselves first and disregard the needs of others. Whoever flatters them they regard as a friend; whoever contradicts or opposes them they see as an enemy.
As these attitudes gradually distort all their actions, words, and thoughts, people become more and more warped and twisted, like crooked old trees, until finally their mentality degenerates so far that any notion of right and wrong is completely lost.
We are in an age when anger, craving, ambition, stupidity, pride, and jealousy are the rule of the day. It is an age when the sun of Dharma is already sinking behind the shoulders of the western mountains, when most of the great teachers have left for other realms, when practitioners go astray in their meditation, and when neither lay people nor the ordained act according to the Dharma.
People may obtain some transient advantage from the misguided values of these times, but ultimately they are cheating no one but themselves.
The poisonous emotions that saturate people’s minds in this dark era are the principal cause of their wandering in the endless cycle of saṃsāra. To deal with those emotions we need to keep a constant vigilance, following the example of the Kadampa masters, who used to say:
I will hold the spear of mindfulness at the gate of the mind,
And when the emotions threaten,
I, too, will threaten them;
When they relax their grip, only then will I relax mine.
Should I serve my defiled emotions ~ Shantideva
ShantidevaAll other foes that I appease and wait upon,
Will show me favors, give me every aid.
But should I serve my dark, defiled emotions,
They will only harm me, draw me down to grief.
My trust is a gift ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaIn my life, I have had some mixed experiences when it comes to placing my trust in others. On various occasions, the kind of treatment or behavior that I expected from others was not forthcoming, and this has led me to think a good deal about what trust means to me. What I have come to feel is that, first of all, I do not want to make my trust of others contingent on their meeting my expectations of them. I do not want trust to become a bargain or exchange, like two parties entering into a contract: “You place your trust in me, and so I will place my trust in you. As long as you behave this way, I will continue to trust you.” Instead, my trust is a gift that I wish to offer freely.
Serving the common interest ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaTry to serve the common interest. Whatever happens, think about what is best for the group rather than acting for yourself alone. The benefit of many is more important than that of each individual. If you cannot tell the difference, there is no way you can serve the public. What’s more, your own interests will be ill served.
Open-minded ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaMy own way of thinking is that when we are meeting with angry or stubborn people, we should bring even greater understanding to bear. The more closed-minded or hardheaded someone seems, the more reason there is for us to be open-minded and gentle when interacting with them. We can recognize how difficult and painful it is to live with anger or narrow views, and this allows us to feel compassion for them.
Inner freedom is key ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaFreedom does not start from the outside. Although external conditions have a part to play, that is not where freedom originates. This might sound backward, but authentic freedom arises initially from inner conditions. Its deepest roots are within us.
Most often when we speak of freedom, what we actually have in mind are freedom’s outer manifestations. This may be the gravest error we make in our understanding of freedom. If we think we will achieve freedom when we can exercise complete control over our immediate environment, we overlook the single most important determinant of authentic freedom: our own minds.
Our mind has unlimited potential. It is not bound to any one position or viewpoint. What we think or feel — our mental state — is not simply determined by outer circumstances. Because of this, no matter how challenging our external conditions might be, we can experience freedom if we cultivate the inner resources that allow us to feel free. The basis for establishing authentic freedom is within us.
If you can access a sense of inner freedom no matter what is going on around you, you are experiencing freedom. As important as outer liberties are, freedom does not consist solely in enjoying physical or verbal liberty, such as freedom of movement or freedom of speech. We may have the liberty to do and say as we wish and yet still be deeply unfree mentally or emotionally. This is why inner freedom is key. When we have freed our minds and hearts from within, our happiness no longer depends on making the rest of the world serve our self-centered goals. Not only that, we gain freedom to work to change the external conditions that have the potential to limit or obstruct our freedom from outside, and we also have what we need to be able to work for the freedom of others.
What are we looking for when we seek freedom? Maybe at the bottom of it all, the freedom we seek is the experience of genuine happiness. Since this is an inner experience, external things cannot be the measure of our happiness or our freedom. We will come back in a moment to the question of what we mean by happiness and how it enables us to experience freedom, but I think if we examine our own experiences, we can see that whether we call it freedom or not, if we feel free, we feel happy, and if we feel happy, we also feel free. The state of mind and the feeling we seek can be called freedom, or it can be called happiness. But whatever name we give it, if we want to experience happiness or freedom, we must cultivate the inner conditions that give rise to those states.
As wisdom dawns ~ Mipham Rinpoche
Mipham RinpocheAs the wisdom of recognizing your own true nature dawns, it clears away the blinding darkness of confusion, and, just as you can see clearly the inside of your home once the sun has risen, you gain confident certainty in the true nature of your mind.
Being in harmony with the dharma ~ Longchenpa
LongchenpaThe categories of teachings are endless. The entrance doors to the vehicles are innumerable. The words to be explained are extensive. Even if you succeed in memorizing millions of volumes of dharma scriptures, unless you are able to practice the essential meaning, you can never be sure that they will help you at the moment of death. And even if your education in studies and reflections is boundless, unless you succeed in being in harmony with the dharma, you will not tame your enemy, negative emotions. Even if you succeed in being the owner of a trillion worlds, unless you can curtail your plans from within with the feeling that nothing more is needed, you will never know contentment. Unless you prepare yourself with the attitude that your death could happen at any time, you cannot achieve the great aim that is surely needed at the time of death.
Benefiting the mind ~ Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
Thinley Norbu RinpocheThe point is that Dharma is intended to benefit the mind, so whatever one does in Dharma is likewise intended to benefit the mind. If a particular practice is beneficial to the mind, then it is positive. Therefore, if practices such as doing prostrations and setting up an altar and making offerings and repeating the Dorje Sempa [Vajrasattva] mantra benefit the mind, one should definitely do them. They can all benefit the mind.
Buddha Shakyamuni said that all phenomena are an expression of the mind. The mind is the most important thing to work with in Dharma. So one’s basic frame of reference in any Dharma practice is working with and transforming the mind, and whatever furthers that intention is an appropriate activity in Dharma.