Seeing clearly ~ Pema Chödron

Meditation is about seeing clearly the body that we have, the mind that we have, the domestic situation that we have, the job that we have, and the people who are in our lives. It’s about seeing how we react to all these things. It’s seeing our emotions and thoughts just as they are right now, in this very moment, in this very room, on this very seat. It’s about not trying to make them go away, not trying to become better than we are, but just seeing clearly with precision and gentleness…[We] work with cultivating gentleness, innate precision, and the ability to let go of small-mindedness, learning how to open to our thoughts and emotions, to all the people we meet in our world, how to open our minds and hearts.

Pema Chödron

Direct experience ~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

We awaken to enlightenment by recognizing and fully realizing the primordially pure essence already present as our nature. That’s how to be an awakened buddha. Even though the enlightened state is actually already present, imagining or forming a thought-construct of enlightenment doesn’t make you enlightened. It’s the same as when you are really hungry and you look at a plate of food and try to imagine what it taste like. Does it work to then imagine, “Mmmmm, I’m eating the food, I’m no longer hungry.” You can think this for a very long time – forever, in fact – but it still doesn’t dispel your hunger. Once you actually put the food in your mouth, it tastes delicious, and your hunger is satiated. It’s the same with experience. Experience only occurs in a direct way, in practical reality, not through a theory about taste. If your meditation practice is merely an exercise in imagining and keeping something in mind, it is only a theory, and not direct experience.

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

Distractions and drowsiness ~ Milarepa

The ultimate practice is not to consider
Distractions and drowsiness as faults.
Doing so to stave them off is like
Kindling a lamp in bright daylight.

Milarepa

Patience ~ 14th Dalai Lama

Patience guards us against losing our presence of mind so we can remain undisturbed, even when the situation is really difficult.

14th Dalai Lama

One need after the other ~ Dudjom Rinpoche

If you are not contented with few possessions, as long as one need after another arises, the deceptive demon of your pleasures will enter without much trouble.

Dudjom Rinpoche

Getting some experience in mind training ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

The important thing is not to do anything that we might have to regret later on. Therefore we should examine ourselves honestly. Unfortunately, our ego-clinging is so gross that, even if we do possess some small quality, we think that we are wonderful. On the other hand, if we have some great defect, we do not even notice it. There is a saying that, ‘On the peak of pride the water of good qualities does not stay.’ So, we should be very meticulous. If, after thoroughly examining ourselves, we can put our hands on our hearts and honestly think, ‘My actions are all right,’ then that is a sign that we are getting some experience in mind training.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Aspire to great things ~ 17th Karmapa

If we are attached to petty concerns and never aspired to anything great, we won’t accomplish much. What is petty and what is great? Petty is for oneself alone, for immediate gratification, and for harmful deeds, while great is for the many, for the long term, and for positive pursuits. Look closely – what have you or those around you achieved ? Avoid pettiness and aspire to great things!

17th Karmapa

A great cosmic song ~ 2nd Dalai Lama

The experience of the tantric yogi is like this:
The outer world is seen as a sacred mandala circle,
And all living beings seen as divine beings.
All experiences become transformed
Into blissful primordial awareness;
And all of one’s actions become spiritual,
Regardless of how they conventionally appear.
Every sound that one makes
Becomes part of a great cosmic song.

2nd Dalai Lama

Mind ~ Mingyur Rinpoche

There’s no difference between what is seen and the mind that sees it.

Mingyur Rinpoche

To trust completely and let go ~ Chögyam Trungpa

One’s relationship with the vajra master involves surrendering oneself to the teacher as the final expression of egolessness. This allows the practitioner to develop fully the threefold vajra nature: vajra body, vajra speech, vajra mind. The maturation of devotion into complete surrendering is called ‘lote lingkyur’ in Tibetan. Lote means ‘trust,’ ling means ‘completely,’ and kyur means ‘abandoning’ or ‘letting go.’ So lote lingkyur means ‘to trust completely and let go’ – to abandon one’s ego completely. Without such surrender, there is no way to give up the last vestiges of your ego; nor could the teacher introduce the yidam, the essence of egolessness. In fact, without such devotion to the teacher, one might attempt to use the vajrayana teachings to rebuild the fortress of ego.

Chögyam Trungpa

Acts of Generosity ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

One day a monk noticed a tear in Gautama Buddha’s robe and offered to stitch it, but Buddha refused his offer. He kept walking and begging alms in his torn robe. When he headed toward the hideout of a destitute woman, the monks were puzzled because they knew that she had no alms to offer. When she saw his torn robe, the woman offered to mend it with what little string she had. Siddhartha accepted and declared that her virtue would allow her to be reborn in her next life as a queen of the heavens. Many people who heard this story were inspired to acts of generosity of their own.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

My precious teacher ~ Geshe Langri Thangpa

When someone whom I have helped,
Or in whom I have placed great hopes,
Mistreats me in extremely hurtful ways,
May I regard him still as my precious teacher.

Geshe Langri Thangpa

As I am ~ Buddha Shakyamuni

As I am, so are these.
As are these, so am I.
Drawing the parallel to yourself,
neither kill nor get others to kill.

Life ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Only the present moment contains life.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Cultivating trust in simplicity ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

The quintessential teaching of the Buddha — the nature of mind — is difficult to understand, not because it is complicated but because of its unbearably naked quality. One common method for deciphering the truth is through commentaries, analysis, arguments, and research. But the more we try to decipher this simplicity through academic studies and intellectual analysis, the more we get sidetracked, deterred, or worse, we end up constructing very convincing concepts that we mistake for the simplicity itself. Therefore, one must work hard to accumulate merit. Accumulating merit is the one and only way to cultivate trust in simplicity. But many of us have to first convince ourselves that accumulation of merit works.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

A beautiful gift ~ Mother Teresa

Every time you smile at someone,
it is an action of love,
a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

Mother Teresa

The sublime path ~ Saraha

Without compassion [merit], the view of emptiness
Will not lead you through the sublime path.

Saraha

Emptiness and non-existence ~ 14th Dalai Lama

The doctrines of emptiness and selflessness do not imply the non-existence of things. Things do exist. When we say that all phenomena are void of self-existence, it does not mean that we are advocating non-existence, that we are repudiating that things exist. Then what is it we are negating? We are negating, or denying, that anything exists from its own side without depending on other things. Hence, it is because things depend for their existence upon other causes and conditions that they are said to lack independent self-existence.