RumiSwim out of your little pond.
Self-liberation ~ Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche
Traleg Kyabgon RinpocheIn the mahamudra tradition, the notion of self-liberation is paramount. Through self-liberating our conflicting emotions and discursive thoughts by allowing them to simply arise and dissipate without any grasping or fixation, we transcend any spiritual requirement to renounce, purify, or transform them. This is the unique skillful means of path mahamudra that inexorably leads to spiritual realization.
Very little time left for practice ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Dzongsar Khyentse RinpocheIn this dangerous and unhealthy world, it would be quite an achievement for someone who is fifty years old today to live to be eighty. The lives of most fifty-year-olds are already more than half over, and the older we get, the quicker time seems to pass. The thirty years we imagine we have left will pass in the blink of an eye. For a start, we sleep for about eight hours a night, which accounts for ten of those thirty years.
Let’s assume that watching one movie a day and eating three times takes about four hours. We also gossip and catch up with friends, check the football results, do housework, pay bills, keep in touch with family and exercise, all of which probably eats up about two hours a day. And of course, most of us work for seven or eight hours a day.
Therefore, if we fifty-year-olds are lucky, we have less than two hours a day, or about two and a half years, left to live. And a great deal of that will be taken up with paranoia, anxiety, self-doubt and so on. So the bottom line here is there is very little time left for practice.
Loving ourselves ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat HanhIf we cannot understand and love ourselves, how will we have the energy to love and understand others?
Fully alive ~ Pema Chödron
Pema ChödronTo be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
Refusing to open up ~ Ajahn Chah
Ajahn ChahWhenever we feel that we are definitely right, so much so that we refuse to open up to anything or anybody else, right there we are wrong. It becomes wrong view. When suffering arises, where does it arise from? The cause is wrong view, the fruit of that being suffering. If it was right view it wouldn’t cause suffering.
Meditation on absolute bodhicitta ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheRecognizing the empty, nonexistent, insubstantial nature of the ego is meditation on absolute bodhicitta.
Living the daily life with bodhicitta motivation ~ Lama Zopa
Lama Zopa RinpocheThe whole thing, so many practices, all come down to live the daily life with bodhicitta motivation to put all the effort in that whatever you do. This way your life doesn’t get wasted and it becomes full of joy and happiness, with no regrets later, especially when you die and you can die with a smile outside and a smile in the heart.
The essence of retreat ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Dzongsar Khyentse RinpocheThe essence of retreat is setting up a boundary – and we are not actually talking about a physical boundary, but we are talking about a boundary of time, setting up a boundary between past and future, which ideally means we remain in presentness.
Humorously going on doing things ~ Dudjom Rinpoche
Dudjom RinpocheIn a sense everything is dreamlike and illusory, but even so, humorously you go on doing things. For example, if you are walking, without unnecessary solemnity or self-consciousness, lightheartedly walk toward the open space of truth. When you sit, be the stronghold of truth. As you eat, feed your negativities and illusions into the belly of emptiness, dissolving them into all-pervading space. And when you go to the toilet, consider all your obscurations and blockages are being cleansed and washed away.
Meditate with perseverance ~ Milarepa
MilarepaRealization does not arise out of words.
Understanding does not come from mere suggestions.
I urge all those who work for enlightenment
To meditate with perseverance and effort.
Endurance and effort overcome the greatest of difficulties.
May there be no obstacles for those who seek enlightenment.
Lamp in the darkness ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaHowever much fighting there is in the world, however much darkness there is, we must be able to serve as small lamps in that darkness.
A person free from remorse ~ Buddha Shakyamuni
Buddha ShakyamuniIt is in the nature of things that joy arises in a person free from remorse.
No more questions ~ Naropa
NaropaOne need ask no more when the true nature is seen.
Be free of meditating ~ Tsele Natsok Rangdrol
Tsele Natsok RangdrolFocusing with effort just increases further thinking.
A training full of judgements brings no progress.
Keep undistracted and be free of meditating:
This I found to be the greatest key advice.
Restless mind ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaThis restless mind is buddha nature. Because it is so intelligent, therefore it is restless. It is so transparent that we can’t put any patch on it to mask over the irritation—if we do, the irritation still comes through. We can’t hold the irritation back or maintain ego-style comfort anymore. In tantric literature, buddha mind is referred to as a lamp in a vase. If a vase is cracked, the imperfections of the vase can be seen because of the light shining through from inside. In Mahayana literature, a popular analogy refers to enlightened mind as the sun and ego’s security as the clouds that prevent the sun from shining through.
Observance of karma ~ Padmasambhava
PadmasambhavaMy realization is higher than the sky,
But my observance of karma is finer than grains of flour.
The real meaning of spiritual ~ Lama Yeshe
Lama YesheI hope that you understand what the word ‘spiritual’ really means. It means to search for – to investigate – the true nature of the mind. There’s nothing spiritual outside. My rosary isn’t spiritual; my robes aren’t spiritual. Spiritual means the mind and spiritual people are those who seek its nature.
Realization ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheExperience is always changing, like the movement of clouds against the sky. Realization – the stable awareness of the true nature of your mind – is like the sky itself, an unchanging background against which shifting experience occur.
True compassion and devotion ~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche
Tsoknyi RinpocheIn truth, devotion, compassion and intelligence should come about naturally, but their natural arising is a bit difficult at the beginning. The Dzogchen texts mentions that on the ‘exterior,’ we should maintain a training in rigpa that is uncontrived, while on the ‘interior’ we sometimes start a session with a fabricated meditation. Whatever the case may be, you must definitely train in loving-kindness and compassion during the post-meditation. Since they are rooted in intelligence, love and compassion naturally and gradually blossom the more you genuinely train in rigpa.
Please understand that the compassion and devotion that arise from experiencing the awakened state are not what we conventionally know as compassion and devotion. It is together with true intelligence, the real knowledge of how to be free – that is why they can become true compassion and true devotion.