Mingyur RinpocheMeditation is a mind-activity. Everywhere the mind goes, the opportunity for meditation exists. The idea that meditation is something that we only do sitting on a cushion in a particular way or at a particular time has created a lot of confusion. Yet if we can recognize awareness anywhere, anytime, we may ask why we make such a big deal out of meditation, with our cushions and mats and seven-point posture. The answer is that we have developed a very strong identification with our monkey-mind. In order to shift our identity to our natural awareness, we need aids, supports, and methods. We all need these strategies, but don’t confuse them with the true meaning of meditation. We are not training in order to to learn about objects. We are training to learn about our mind, because our mind holds the source of all possibilities — good and bad, happy and sad, sane and neurotic. Freedom exists within our very own heart and mind.
Tag Archives: awareness
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.
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.
Your natural face ~ Padmasambhava
PadmasambhavaLook into the awakened mind of your own awareness! It has neither form nor color, neither center nor edge. At first, it has no origin but is empty. Next, it has no dwelling place but is empty. At the end, it has no destination but is empty. This emptiness is not made of anything and is clear and cognizant. When you see this and recognize it, you know your natural face. You understand the nature of things. You have then seen the nature of mind, resolved the basic state of reality and cut through doubts about topics of knowledge.
Enjoying with awareness ~ Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche
Namkhai Norbu RinpocheIf we are spiritual practitioners we feel contempt for samsaric situations; we are not seriously or deeply interested in them. This does not mean that we feel disgust for or reject everything. In our life, all is relative. In our life, not everything is how it should be, nonetheless we continue to live. We accept and integrate the various circumstances of life. This is part of our awareness. To accept everything with awareness is different from being completely attached. Some people have an exaggerated liking for this or that: this is attachment. However, it does not mean that if you are a good practitioner you cannot have likings. You can like and enjoy with awareness. In the samsaric condition, we possess five or six senses, and with the senses we enjoy contact with objects. When we see an object, a flower for example, we may like it. We observe its beauty and smell its fragrance. We enjoy looking and smelling. To enjoy with awareness means to know the real nature of the object and not become attached to it. In this way, we enjoy without having negative consequences. If we are not aware, we become distracted with our liking for the flower; we want to possess the flower and attempt to have it. Thus, attachment increases, releasing all other emotions, with the ensuing negative karma. In brief, if one is aware and undistracted the enjoyment of the senses does not pose any problem. If one is distracted, enjoyment always bears negative consequences, even if things appear joyful and gratifying. For that reason, the teaching says that all is illusion. When we see a nice object and we become attached, we resemble a moth which, attracted by a flame at night, flies into it, burns, and dies.
Indispensable to liberation ~ Tulku Thondup Rinpoche
Tulku Thondup RinpocheBuddhism teaches that in our true nature, we are enlightened—totally open, peaceful, joyful, compassionate, and omniscient. The Buddha proclaimed:
“Profound, peaceful, and free from concepts,
Luminous and uncompounded—
A nectar-like nature—that I have realized!”This aspect of our mind is “the true nature of the mind.” When we become aware of and perfect it, we become blossoming buddhas.
We’re all attracted to these highest views. But some students of Buddhism just want to meditate on the nature of the mind, emptiness-wisdom, free from concepts, without opening their hearts to the merit-making practices that are indispensable to liberation. They regard important practices like praying and generating devotion as “theistic” and “dualistic.”
The essence of mind ~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
Tulku Urgyen RinpocheThe essence of mind that is primordially empty and rootless is unlike holding the idea of emptiness in mind, and it is not the same as the sustained attempt to feel empty. Neither of these helps very much. By growing used to this natural, original emptiness again and again, we become accustomed to it. Then there will be a stretch throughout the whole day from morning to evening, which is only empty awareness untainted by notions of perceived objects or the perceiving mind. This corresponds to having attained the bodhisattva levels, the bhumis. When there is never a break throughout day and night, that is called buddhahood, true and complete enlightenment.
Beginning to identify with pristine awareness ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheThough we’re conditioned to identify with the thoughts that pass through our awareness rather than with awareness itself, the awareness that is our true nature is infinitely flexible. It is capable of any and every sort of experience – even misconceptions about itself as limited, trapped, ugly, anxious, lonely, or afraid. When we begin to identify with that timeless, pristine awareness rather than with the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that pass through it, we’ve taken the first step toward facing the freedom of our true nature.
In the crystal mirror theater of awareness mind ~ Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
Thinley Norbu RinpocheIn the crystal mirror theater of awareness mind the supreme artist performs his magical displays, but rare is the clear insight audience capable of viewing this wisdom.
Becoming aware ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheIf we were to become aware of our habitual thoughts, perceptions, and sensations, rather than being carried away by them, their power over us would begin to fade.
A great cosmic song ~ 2nd Dalai Lama
2nd Dalai LamaThe 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.
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.
Cultivating mindfulness ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaCultivating mindfulness is the attitude that allows us to see ourselves and our world quite accurately and precisely. When we talk about attitude in this context, we are talking about developing the awareness of mind, which is precisely what mindfulness is. Awareness of mind means that you are fundamentally aware and that your mind is aware of yourself. In other words, you’re aware that you’re aware. You are not a machine; you are an individual person relating with what’s happening around you. Mindfulness is developing this sense of being.
Awareness and apprehended objects ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheJust as space isn’t defined by the objects that move through it, awareness isn’t defined by what it apprehends.
The continually changing pattern ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheAll phenomena appear in their uniqueness as part of the continually changing pattern. These patterns are vibrant with meaning and significance at every moment; yet there is no significance to attach to such meanings beyond the moment in which they present themselves.
All These Forms ~ Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche
Khenpo Tsultrim RinpocheAll these forms—appearance emptiness
Like a rainbow with its shining glow
In the reaches of appearance emptiness
Just let go and go where no mind goesEvery sound is sound and emptiness
Like the sound of an echo’s roll
In the reaches of sound and emptiness
Just let go and nowhere no mind goesEvery feeling is bliss and emptiness
Way beyond what words can show
In the reaches of bliss and emptiness
Just let go and go where no mind goesAll awareness—awareness emptiness
Way beyond what thought can know
In the reaches of appearance emptiness
Let awareness go—oh, where no mind goes.
A Song of Joy ~ Shabkar
ShabkarAll appearances are vast openness,
Blissful and utterly free.With a free, happy mind
I sing this song of joy.When one looks toward one’s own mind –
The root of all phenomena –
There is nothing but vivid emptiness,
Nothing concrete there to be taken as real.It is present and transparent, utter openness,
Without outside, without inside –
An all pervasiveness
Without boundary and without direction.The wide-open expanse of the view,
The true condition of the mind,
Is like the sky, like space:
Without center, without edge, without goal.By leaving whatever i experience
Relaxed in ease, just as it is,
I have arrived at the vast plain
That is the absolute expanse.Dissolving into the expanse of emptiness
That has no limits and no boundary,
Everything i see, everything i hear,
My own mind, and the sky all merge.Not once has the notion arisen
Of these being seperate and distinct.In the absolute expanse of awareness
All things are blended into that single taste –
But, relatively, each and every phenomenom is distinctly,
clearly seen.Wondrous!
Never once aware ~ Ajahn Chah
Ajahn ChahThere are people who are born and die and never once are aware of their breath going in and out of their body. That’s how far away they live from themselves.
Clarity ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheMy teachers described the clear light of mind as self-illuminating – like the flame of a candle, which is both a source of illumination and illumination itself. Clarity is part of the mind from the beginning, a natural awareness. You can’t develop it the way, for instance, you develop muscles through physical exercise. The only thing you have to do is acknowledge it, simply notice the fact that you’re aware.
Empty Essence ~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche
Tsoknyi RinpocheEmpty essence means very, very open
And very spacious, like a totally open sky.
Space has no center or edge.
Nothing is prevented, it is completely unimpeded.
Empty essence, like space, is not made out of anything whatsoever.
At the same time there is a sense of knowing,
An awake quality, a cognizant nature,
Not separate from the openness of this space.
Like the sun shining in daytime,
The daylight and space are not separate.
It’s all sunlit space.
Nothing is confined, nothing is blocked out.
All the doors and windows are wide open.
Like a total welcome – of all possibilities –
Which doesn’t get caught up in whatever happens.
It is wide open,
The unity of empty essence and cognizant nature.
This is the third quality, that of unconfined capacity.