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"Compassion has nothing to do with achievement at all. It is spacious and very generous. When a person develops real compassion, he is uncertain whether he is being generous to others or to himself because compassion is enviromental generosity, without direction, without ” for me” and without ” for them”. It is filled with joy, spontaneously existing joy, constant joy in the sense of trust, in the sense that joy contains tremendous wealth, richness.”
“You have to be fully involved; you have to become one with what you are doing. So it is with giving things away. No matter how small the thing is in terms of value, one must be fully involved in the giving, so that a part of one’s ego is also given away. Through that one reaches the paramita, the transcendental act, of generosity, which is something beyond the ordinary.”
“The beginner in meditation/ resembles a hunting dog/ having a bad dream.” ~haiku by Chogyam Trungpa
“The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions and to all people, experiencing everything totally without mental reservations and blockages, so that one never withdraws or centralizes into oneself.”
“Magic is the power within oneself. You have enough strength, exertion and energy to view things as they are, personally, properly, and directly. You have the chance to experience the brightness of life and the haziness of life, which is also a source of power. The fantastically sharp-edged quality of life can be experienced personally and directly. There is a powerful sense of perception available to you.”
“We often wonder what to do about negativity or certain troubling emotions. In the spaciousness of meditation, you can view your thoughts and emotions with a totally unbiased attitude. When your attitude changes, then the whole atmosphere of your mind changes, even the very nature of your thoughts and emotions. When you become more agreeable, then they do; if you have no difficulty with them, they will have no difficulty with you either.”
”Whole-heartedness is a precious gift, but no one can actually give it to you. You have to find the path that has heart and then walk it impeccably….It’s like someone laughing in your ear, challenging you to figure out what to do when you don’t know what to do. It humbles you. It opens your heart.”
~ Pema Chodron
"To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit. But this place of warrior strength is in the heart.”
~ Jack Kornfield
“We have to study with our warm heart, not just with our brain.”
~ Shunryu Suzuki
“Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us. Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear. It allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal."
~ Dalai Lama
“When we accept the way things are, we are able to love everything and anybody. When we are not able to accept even one thing in this world right now, then how could we ever develop boundless love? Lack of acceptance is conflict. Conflict is pain. It is psychological pain. It is a spiritual illness. As long as our hearts are tormented by that pain, we do not have the strength to give our heart to anything and because of that it is impossible to bring about inner awakening. Enlightenment, you see, is just another name for boundless love.”
Here's a couple from Pema Chodron - I HIGHLY recommend her books!
“What’s encouraging about meditation is that, even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we’re closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance.”
“Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic goodness of what we have and who we are, and of realizing that any wisdom that exists, exists in what we already have. We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we’re doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we’re doing. The key is to wake up, to become more alert, more inquisitive and curious about ourselves.”
“People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That’s not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn’t understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you’re given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.”
“Ego is like a room of your own, a room with a view, with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like. You want it your own way. You’d just like to have a little peace, you’d like to have a little happiness, you know, just gimme a break. But the more you think that way, the more you try to get life to come out so that it will always suit you, the more your fear of other people and what’s outside your room grows. Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start pulling down the shades and locking the door. When you do go out, you find the experience more and more ..."
"We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don’t like about our associates or our society. It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others. Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself."
Above all else, we need to nourish our true self—what we can call our buddha nature—for so often we make the fatal mistake of identifying with our confusion, and then using it to judge and condemn ourselves, which feeds the lack of self-love that so many of us suffer from today.
How vital it is to refrain from the temptation to judge ourselves or the teachings, and to be humorously aware of our condition, and to realize that we are, at the moment, as if many people all living in one person.
And how encouraging it can be to accept that from one perspective we all have huge problems, which we bring to the spiritual path and which indeed may have led us to the teachings, and yet to know from another point of view that ultimately our problems are not so real or so solid, or so insurmountable as we have told ourselves.
Here's a couple from Shunryu Suzuki, author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind:
The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind.
If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat.
Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well.
Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice; there is no other way of life than this way of life.
Difficulties and obstacles, if properly understood and used, can turn out to be an unexpected source of strength. Gesar was the great warrior king of Tibet, whose escapades form the greatest epic of Tibetan literature. Gesar means “indomitable,” someone who can never be put down. From the moment Gesar was born, his evil uncle Trotung tried all kinds of means to kill him. But with each attempt Gesar only grew stronger and stronger.
For the Tibetans, Gesar is not only a martial warrior but also a spiritual one. To be a spiritual warrior means to develop a special kind of courage, one that is innately intelligent, gentle, and fearless. Spiritual warriors can still be frightened, but even so they are courageous enough to taste suffering, to relate clearly to their fundamental fear, and to draw out without evasion the lessons from difficulties.
Whatever you do, don’t shut off your pain; accept your pain and remain vulnerable. However desperate you become, accept your pain as it is, because it is in fact trying to hand you a priceless gift: the chance of discovering, through spiritual practice, what lies behind sorrow.
“Grief,” Rumi wrote, “can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.”
“Mesmerized by the sheer variety of perceptions, which are like the illusory reflections of the moon in water, beings wander endlessly astray in samsara’s vicious cycle. In order that they may find comfort and ease in the luminosity and all-pervading space of the true nature of their minds, I generate the immeasurable love, compassion, joy, and equanimity of the awakened mind, the heart of Bodhicitta.”
~ Jigmed Lingpa
“Everyone tries to remove superficial pain, but there is another class of techniques concerned with removing suffering on a deeper level – aiming, at a minimum, to diminish suffering in future lives and, beyond that, even to remove all forms of suffering for oneself as well as for all beings. Spiritual practice is of this deeper type. These techniques involve an adjustment of attitude; thus, spiritual practice basically means to adjust your thought well. In sanskrit, it is called ‘dharma’, which means ‘that which holds.’
~ Dalai Lama
“Buddha was a human being, like you or me. He never claimed divinity, he merely knew that he had the Buddha Nature, the seed of enlightenment, and that everyone else did too. The Buddha Nature is simply the birthright of every sentient being, and I always say, ‘Our Buddha Nature is as good as any Buddha’s Buddha Nature.’”
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
“From the time we open our eyes in the morning until we sleep at night, if we can pass the whole day with a kind-hearted mind and cheerful face, on good terms with people and talking pleasantly to them, our mind will be relaxed when we go to sleep at night.”
~ Ogyen Trinley Dorje
“Whatever grounds there are for making merit productive of a future birth, all those do not equal a sixteenth part of the liberation of mind by loving-kindness. The liberation of mind by loving-kindness surpasses them and shines forth, brilliant and bright.”
~ The Buddha (from “In the Buddha’s Words” translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi)
“All the peace and happiness of the whole globe, the peace and happiness of societies, the peace and happiness of family, the peace and happiness of the individual persons’ life, and the peace and happiness of all the animals and so forth, all depends on having loving kindness for each other.”
Here's a couple by Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance -
"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there."
"The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling."
"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion."
"The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there."
"For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses. "
"If someone's ungrateful and you tell him he's ungrateful, okay, you've called him a name. You haven't solved anything."
"…the doctrinal differences between Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself."
"This inner peace of mind occurs on three levels of understanding. Physical quietness seems the easiest to achieve, although there are levels and levels of this too, as attested by the ability of Hindu mystics to live buried alive for many days. Mental quietness, in which one has no wandering thoughts at all, seems more difficult, but can be achieved. But value quietness, in which one has no wandering desires at all but simply performs the acts of his life without desire, that seems the hardest."
Continuin the Zen flavour with a bit of Zen made easy by Timothy Freke -
Zen is not a religious doctrine passed from generation to generation. It is a living experience of life itself of which the traditional teachings are a faint echo. Zen teachings are often compared to a finger pointing at the moon. The finger is not the moon, and the teachings are not Zen. They gesture towards something ineffable and ultimately completely incommunicable. To see the moon it is necessary to stop looking at the pointing finger. Likewise, Zen teachings are only finally understood when they are abandoned.
Zen teaches nothing. Whatever teachings there are in Zen, they come out of one's own mind. We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way - D.T. Suzuki
Zen encourages us to undergo strenuous spiritual practices to help us see through the illusion of separateness and experience enlightenment. Yet it also teaches that enlightenment can actually only occur spontaneously, and believing we are doing something, even spiritual practices, only endorse the false idea of the ego.
We are caught in a "Catch-22" situation. We need to free ourselves from the illusion of being a separate self. What can we do? The idea that there is a "someone" to do anything about the problem is the problem itself! Does Zen have a solution for this impossible dilemma? Mu!
Master Ekai meditated on a koan for six years, until one day he heard the monastery drum and was spontaneously enlightened. This koan was the exclamation "Mu!", which literally means "Not!" Ekai would often simply shout "Mu!" in reply to his students' questions as a way of pointing to an answer beyond the logical mind. "Mu!" declares "Anything you can think is not the answer." "Mu!" demands "Abandon your question and directly experience What-is."
Zen masters are renowned for their bizarre behaviour. But although the Zen masters may seem irrational, Zen obeys its own logic. Their aberrant actions graphically illustrate Zen teachings in a way that words cannot. Their eccentricities exemplify a way of being that is spontaneous and unconditioned.
The inner peace sought by Zen meditators is not the comforting dullness of sleep, but the super-awakeness of being completely present. Sometimes the alertness necessary is compared to that of someone facing a life and death situation. Or to having the most fascinationg thought you've ever had - only without the thought!
Imagine hanging from a cliff-face and you will know the alertness of Zen mind.
Don’t be in too much of a hurry to solve all your doubts and problems. As the masters say: “Make haste slowly.” I always tell my students not to have unreasonable expectations, because it takes time for spiritual growth. It takes years to learn Japanese properly or to become a doctor. Can we really expect to have all the answers, let alone become enlightened, in a few weeks?
The spiritual journey is one of continuous learning and purification. When you know this, you become humble. There is a famous Tibetan saying: “Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation.” And Milarepa said: “Do not entertain hopes for realization, but practice all your life.”
Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality.
--Alfred Painter
Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -- because we will always want to have something else or something more.
--Brother David Steindl-Rast
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.
--Denis Waitley
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
--Eric Hoffer
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
--Cicero
Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.
--Lionel Hampton
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Here's a few from the viewonbuddhism site about meditation/reflection -
If we develop inner awareness, which is like an inner space, we can ride the waves of life. People imagine that to be a meditator you have to always live in very tranquil situations and that you are likely to be inundated if a turbulent situation arises. This is true for beginners, just as it is for someone who is learning how to surf. At the beginning, they have to stick to the small waves otherwise they will be bowled over. But an expert surfer looks for the big waves. The greater the waves, the more fun, once you have your balance. The secret is to be balanced, to be poised. To be a good surfer you need to be neither too tense nor too relaxed, just balanced. This is what we need in our practice, too.
~ Ani Tenzin Palmo, from 'Reflections on a Mountain Lake: Teachings on Practical Buddhism'
When you begin to study Zen, you aim to attain realization. Your motive is good in so far as motive is concerned, but in your meditation you should aim at nothing. You may aim at realization to encourage yourself when you are not meditating, but beware of clinging entanglements. Encouragement is one thing, meditation is another. Do not mix them up. Carry your meditation as the eternal present, and saturate your everyday life with it.
~ Nyogen Senzaki, Excerpted from Buddhism and Zen
Following the instruction of a teacher, a practitioner may attain, in an instant, his true self, thereby realizing that he is ultimately no different from the Buddha. Hence it is said, “Originally, there is nothing,” which means simply that one must not underestimate oneself, and lack confidence. This is the teaching of “sudden enlightenment.”
Even after attaining some realization, however, one must always strive to cut off lingering mind-habits so that one can be fully transformed from an “ordinary person” into a “sage.” This is the teaching of “gradual cultivation,” emphasizing that we must “polish the mirror from moment to moment.” This is why pride can be such a hindrance. Lacking faith in one’s own nature is the sickness of those attached to scriptural authority, whereas pride is the disease of those who practice Zen meditation.
~ So Sahn (1520-1604), from The Mirror of Zen – The Classic Guide to Buddhist Practice by Zen Master So Sahn
How about a few thoughts on life in general ... (from the wisdomquotes site) -
Be where you are; otherwise you will miss your life.
- Buddha
We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.
- Talmud
Of course there is not formula for success except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.
- Arthur Rubinstein
Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.
- Audre Lorde
No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.
- Barbara de Angelis
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
- Mark Twain
In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.
- Audre Lorde
The cause of all our personal problems and nearly all the problems of the world can be summed up in a single sentence: Human life is very deep, and our modern dominant lifestyle is not.
- Bo Lozoff
Experience is how life catches up with us and teaches us to love and forgive each other.
- Judy Collins
When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"
- Sydney J. Harris
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
- Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
People with opinions just go around bothering one another.
"Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. I mean do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage. How are we to be patient in dealing with our neighbour's faults if we are impatient in dealing with our own? He who is fretted by his own failings will not correct them. All profitable correction comes from a calm and peaceful mind."
"Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals."
~ Agnes Repplier
"I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows."
~ Susan B. Anthony
"If you spent one-tenth of the time you devoted to distractions like chasing women or making money to spiritual practice, you would be enlightened in a few years."
~ Ramakrishna
"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly."
~ Richard Bach
"People who want to share their religious views with you, almost never want you to share yours with them."
~ Dave Barry
Goodwill towards all is true religion.
~ From the Buddhacarita
An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?"
~ Annie Dillard
"You talk to God, you're religious. God talks to you, you're psychotic."
~ Doris Egan
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
~ Albert Einstein
"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity."
~ Albert again
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." ~ Galileo Galilei
"Religion is like going out to dinner with friends. Everyone may order something different, but everyone can still sit at the same table."
Imagine you are sitting in front of a glass door that leads out into your garden, looking through it, gazing out into space. It seems as though there is nothing between you and the sky, because you cannot see the surface of the glass. You would bang your nose if you got up and tried to walk through, thinking it wasn’t there. But if you touch it you will see at once that there is something there that holds your fingerprints, something that comes between you and the space outside.
In the same manner, the ground of the ordinary mind prevents us from breaking through to the skylike nature of our mind, even if we can still have glimpses of it. We have to break out of the ground of the ordinary mind altogether, to discover and let in the fresh air of Rigpa.
When you’re a Buddha, you have fully developed the two wings of a bird. You’ve got wisdom that literally sees everything that exists. Buddha says everything is knowable and each of us has the potential to see, to cognize everything. The compassion wing is the full development of the enormous empathy for all living beings as if they were oneself.The third quality is this immense power to effortlessly do whatever needs to be done to benefit all living beings, whose minds you see perfectly and for whom you have infinite compassion.
~ Robina Courtin, Mandala Magazine December 2003
No words can describe it No example can point to it Samsara does not make it worse Nirvana does not make it better It has never been born It has never ceased It has never been liberated It has never been deluded It has never existed It has never been nonexistent It has no limits at all It does not fall into any kind of category.
~ Dudjom Rinpoche
Once you have the View, although the delusory perceptions of samsara may arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear it’s not particularly disappointed either. There is a deep sense of contentment. You chuckle from inside as you see the facade of samsara and nirvana; the View will keep you constantly amused, with a little inner smile bubbling away all the time.
~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
For most of us, our natural mind or Buddha-nature is obscured by the limited self-image created by habitual neuronal patterns - which, in themselves, are simply a reflection o fthe unlimited capacity of the mind to create any condition it chooses. Natural mind is capable of producing anything, even ignorance of its own nature. In other words, not recognizing natural mind is simply an example of the mind's unlimited capacity to create whatever it wants. Whenever we feel fear, sadness, jealousy, desire, or any other emotion that contributes to our sense of vulnerability or weakness, we should give ourselves a nice pat on the back. We've just experienced the unlimited nature of the mind.
Although the true nature of the mind can't be described directly, that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try to develop some theoretical understanding about it. Even a limited understanding is at least a signpost, pointing the way toward direct experience. The Buddha understood that experiences impossible to describe in words could best be explained through stories and metaphors. In one text, he compared Tathagatagarbha (Buddha-nature) to a nugget of gold covered with mud and dirt.
Imagine you are a treasure hunter. One day, you discover a chunk of metal in the ground. You dig a hole, pull out the metal, take it home, and start to clean it. At first, one corner of the nugget reveals itself, bright and shining. Gradually, as you wash away the accumulated dirt and mud, the whole chunk is revealed as gold. So let me ask: Which is more valuable - the chunk of gold buried in mud, or the one you cleaned? Actually, the value is equal. Any difference between the dirty nugget and the clean is superficial.
~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret & Science of the Mind
The absolute truth cannot be realized within the domain of the ordinary mind. And the path beyond the ordinary mind, all the great wisdom traditions have told us, is through the heart. This path of the heart is devotion.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Do not accept any of my words on faith, Believing them just because I said them. Be like an analyst buying gold, who cuts, burns, And critically examines his product for authenticity. Only accept what passes the test By proving useful and beneficial in your life.
~ Buddha
There are different levels of faith. First, clear faith refers to the joy and clarity and change in our perceptions that we experience when we hear about the qualities of the Three Jewels and the lives of the Buddha and the great teachers. Longing faith is experienced when we think about the latter and are filled with a great desire to know more about their qualities and to acquire these ourselves. Confident faith comes through practicing the Dharma, when we acquire complete confidence in the truth of the teachings and the enlightenment of the Buddha. Finally, when faith has become so much a part of ourselves that even if our lives were at risk we could never give it up, it has become irreversible faith. ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, The Excellent Path to Enlightenment
A practitioner needs faith, or trust.... Guru Rinpoche said that we should meditate in the same way that a sparrow enters a nest. A sparrow spends some time investigating whether or not it is safe to enter. Once his examination is over, he then enters unhesitatingly. That's a wonderful metaphor for practice. First clear up all your doubts about your technique, then throw yourself into the technique with no separation or self-consciousness. Of course, it's easy to say, but that is the direction toward which we should be moving.
~ Bruce Newman, A Beginner's Guide to Tibetan Buddhism
Devotion is the purest, quickest, and simplest way to realize the nature of mind and all things. As we progress in it, the process reveals itself as wonderfully interdependent: We, from our side, try continually to generate devotion, which itself generates glimpses of the nature of mind, and these glimpses only enhance and deepen our devotion to the master who is inspiring us. So in the end devotion springs out of wisdom: devotion and the living experience of the nature of mind become inseparable and inspire each other.
To end the bizarre tyranny of ego is why we take the spiritual path, but the resourcefulness of ego is almost infinite, and it can at every stage sabotage and pervert our desire to be free of it. The truth is simple, and the teachings are extremely clear; but I have seen again and again, with great sadness, that as soon as they begin to touch and move us, ego tries to complicate them, because it knows it is fundamentally threatened.
However hard ego may try to sabotage the spiritual path, if you really continue on it, and work deeply with the practice of meditation, you will begin slowly to realize just how gulled you have been by ego’s promises: false hopes and false fears. Slowly you begin to understand that both hope and fear are enemies of your peace of mind; hopes deceive you, and leave you empty and disappointed, and fears paralyze you in the narrow cell of your false identity. You begin to see also just how all-encompassing the sway of ego has been over your mind, and in the space of freedom opened up by meditation, when you are momentarily released from grasping, you glimpse the exhilarating spaciousness of your true nature.
More from the viewonbuddhism site - WELL wortha visit or two
Sometimes when we see too much truth about ourselves suddenly mirrored in front of us by the teacher or the teachings, it is simply too difficult to face, too terrifying to recognize, too painful to accept as the reality about ourselves. We deny and reject it, in an absurd and desperate attempt to defend ourselves fromourselves,from the truth of who we really are. And when there are things too powerful or too difficult to accept about ourselves, we project them onto the world around us, usually onto those who help us and love us the most—our teacher, the teachings, our parent, or our closest friend.
How can we possibly penetrate the tough shield of this defensive system? The very best solution is when we can recognize ourselves that we are living duped by our own delusions. I have seen how for many people a glimpse of the truth, the true View, can bring the whole fantastic construction of wrong views, fabricated by ignorance, tumbling instantly to the ground.
A Buddhist monk was meditating when his master walked in. Master: Why are you meditating? Monk: Because I want to become a Buddha! The master sat down and started polishing a stone. The curious young monk asked, Monk: What are you doing? Master: Trying to turn this stone into a mirror. Monk: But you can't make mirrors out of stone. Master: Neither can you become a Buddha by sitting there cross-legged all day!
For more on this theme ... plug the following into Google -
viewonbuddhism buddha nature
Here's one that caught my eye -
Once you have the View, although the delusory perceptions of samsara may arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear it’s not particularly disappointed either. There is a deep sense of contentment. You chuckle from inside as you see the facade of samsara and nirvana; the View will keep you constantly amused, with a little inner smile bubbling away all the time.
"As we begin to develop awareness of the mind, the mind itself appears to divide into two. A new aspect of the mind arises. This is referred to variously as the witness, the seer, the knower, or the observer. It witnesses without judgment and without comment. Along with the arrival of the witness, a space appears within the mind. This enables us to see thoughts and emotions as mere thoughts and emotions, rather than as 'me' and 'mine.' When the thoughts and emotions are no longer seen as 'me' or 'mine', we begin to have choices. Certain thoughts and emotions are helpful, so we encourage them. Others are not so helpful, so we just let them go. All the thoughts and emotions are recognized and accepted. Nothing is suppressed. But now we have a choice about how to react. We can give energy to the ones, which are useful and skillful and withdraw energy from those which are not."
~ From Ani Tenzin Palmo, Reflections on a Mountain Lake: Teachings on Practical Buddhism
The compassionate wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all others is called Bodhicitta in Sanskrit: bodhi refers to our enlightened essence, and citta means “heart.” So we could translate it as “the heart of our enlightened mind.” To awaken and develop the heart of the enlightened mind is to ripen steadily the seed of our buddha nature, that seed that, in the end, when our practice of compassion has become perfect and all-embracing, will flower majestically into buddhahood. Bodhicitta, then, is the spring and source and root of the entire spiritual path. This is why in our tradition we pray with such urgency:
Those who haven’t yet given birth to precious Bodhicitta, May they give birth, Those who have given birth, May their Bodhicitta not lessen but increase further and further.
Lifetimes of ignorance have brought us to identify the whole of our being with ego. Its greatest triumph is to inveigle us into believing its best interests are our best interests, and even into identifying our very survival with its own. This is a savage irony, considering that ego and its grasping are at the root of all our suffering.
Yet, ego is so terribly convincing, and we have been its dupe for so long, that the thought that we might ever become egoless terrifies us. To be egoless, ego whispers to us, is to lose all the rich romance of being human, to be reduced to a colorless robot or a brain-dead vegetable.
However hard ego may try to sabotage the spiritual path, if you really continue on it, and work deeply with the practice of meditation, you will begin slowly to realize just how gulled you have been by ego’s promises: false hopes and false fears. Slowly you begin to understand that both hope and fear are enemies of your peace of mind; hopes deceive you, and leave you empty and disappointed, and fears paralyze you in the narrow cell of your false identity. You begin to see also just how all-encompassing the sway of ego has been over your mind, and in the space of freedom opened up by meditation, when you are momentarily released from grasping, you glimpse the exhilarating spaciousness of your true nature.
"Of course, this faith would be confirmed, step by step, as one followed the teaching and began gaining results, but full confirmation would come only with an experience of Awakening. Prior to that point, one' s trust, bolstered by partial results, would have to be a matter of faith. Acquiring this faith is called 'going for refuge' in the Buddha. The 'refuge' here derives from the fact that one has placed trust in the truth of the Buddha's Awakening and expects that by following his teachings--in particular, the principle of skillful kamma--one protects oneself from creating further suffering for oneself and others, eventually reaching true, unconditioned happiness. This act of going for refuge is what qualifies one as a Buddhist--as opposed to someone simply interested in the Buddha's teachings--and puts one in a position to benefit fully from what the Buddha taught" -Thanissaro Bhikkhu, The Wings to Awakening (pp. 16-17)
"The challenge for anyone facing serious disease is how to balance determination and willpower with acceptance of human frailty and imperfection." -Ken Cohen, Qigong: The Art & Science of Chinese Energy Healing
In the western world the word compassion comes with a flavor of weakness. But what about a compassion that comes from a very strong and able mind, wouldn’t that be a wonderful ability to possess? Genuine compassion, as the Dalai Lama speaks about, originates from the realization that every human being is ultimately the same as every other human being.
Genuine compassion is a state of mind which is non-violent, non-harming and non-aggressive. This attitude is based on the wish for others to be free of their suffering and is associated with a sense of commitment, responsibility and respect for the other. It creates a positive, friendly and secure atmosphere. To develop compassion we can take the wish to be free of suffering for ourselves and then cultivate it to include and embrace others.
The value and benefit of compassion is obvious: if we understand, accept and even support that every human being has the wish to be happy, just like myself, then it is the basis of peace and therefore for happiness.
For more of this advice plug the followin into Google -
Sit for a short time; then take a break, a very short break of about thirty seconds or a minute. But be mindful of whatever you do, and do not lose your presence and its natural ease. Then alert yourself and sit again. If you do many short sessions like this, your breaks will often make your meditation more real and more inspiring; they will take the clumsy, irksome rigidity, solemnity, and unnaturalness out of your practice and bring you more and more focus and ease.
Gradually, through this interplay of breaks and sitting, the barrier between meditation and everyday life will crumble, the contrast between them will dissolve, and you will find yourself increasingly in your natural pure presence, without distraction.
Then, as Dudjom Rinpoche used to say: “Even though the meditator may leave the meditation, the meditation will not leave the meditator.”
The teachings of all the great mystical paths of the world make it clear that there is within us an enormous reservoir of power, the power of wisdom and compassion, the power of what Christ called the Kingdom of Heaven. If we learn how to use it—and this is the goal of the search for enlightenment—it can transform not only ourselves but the world around us. Has there ever been a time when the clear use of this sacred power was more essential or more urgent? Has there ever been a time when it was more vital to understand the nature of this pure power and how to channel it and how to use it for the sake of the world?
To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.
~ Theodore H. White
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
~ Mark Twain
Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.
~ Rabindranath Tagore
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
"Meditation is not about some state, it is about the meditator."
~ Charlotte Joko Beck
"Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom."
~ Buddha
"Seek truth in meditation, not in moldy books. Look in the sky to find the moon, not in the pond."
~ Persian proverb
"Regular meditation opens the avenues of intuitional knowledge, makes the mind calm and steady, awakens an ecstatic feeling, and brings the practitioner in contact with the source of his/her very being." ~ Swami Sivananda
For more on meditation ... plug the followin into Google -
Enlightenment for Gautama [the Buddha] felt as though a prison which had confined him for thousands of lifetimes had broken open. Ignorance had been the jailkeeper. Because of ignorance, his mind had been obscured, just like the moon and stars hidden by the storm clouds. Clouded by endless waves of deluded thoughts, the mind had falsely divided reality into subject and object, self and others, existence and non-existence, birth and death, and from these discriminations arose wrong views—the prisons of feelings, craving, grasping, and becoming. The suffering of birth, old age, sickness, and death only made the prison walls thicker. The only thing to do was to seize the jailkeeper and see his true face. The jailkeeper was ignorance . . . Once the jailkeeper was gone, the jail would disappear and never be rebuilt again.
"Gratitude is an attitude that hooks us up to our source of supply. And the more grateful you are, the closer you become to your maker, to the architect of the universe, to the spiritual core of your being. It’s a phenomenal lesson."
~ Bob Proctor
"To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven."
~ Johannes A. Gaertner
"If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily."
~ Gerald Good
"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful."
~ Buddha
"Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you."
Suffering is a big word in Buddhist thought. It is a key term and it should be thoroughly understood. The Pali word is dukkha, and it does not just mean the agony of the body. It means that deep subtle sense of unsatisfactoriness which is a part of every mind moment and which results directly from the mental treadmill. The essence of life is suffering, said the Buddha. At first glance this seems exceedingly morbid and pessimistic. It even seems untrue. After all, there are plenty of times when we are happy. Aren't there. No, there are not. It just seems that way. Take any moment when you feel really fulfilled and examine it closely. Down under the joy, you will find that subtle, all-pervasive undercurrent of tension, that no matter how great this moment is, it is going to end. No matter how much you just gained, you are either going to lose some of it or spend the rest of your days guarding what you have got and scheming how to get more. And in the end, you are going to die. In the end, you lose everything. It is all transitory.
~ Henepola Gunaratana, from 'Mindfulness in Plain English'.
Feelings of suffering change into those of happiness. Feelings of happiness change into suffering. Both arise in dependence upon internal and external causes which change. For example, we see food as pleasurable, but if we eat too much, then it causes suffering. When we are young, we see our bodies as a source of pleasure. As we become older, the same body becomes a source of suffering. Just as a wave is always changing, so the nature of suffering is always to change. It may be experienced as pleasure or as suffering, but it arises from the same source. Pleasure arises from suffering. Seeing pleasure as happiness constitutes suffering.
... Pain and pleasure are of the same nature. Although they look different at different times, they both arise from the same sea of delusion and karmic action. Pleasure or pain, one or the other, arises and then falls back into the ocean. Thus we can conclude that pleasure and pain within the ocean of samsara are basically suffering, and dissolve into suffering.
This becomes evident in the wide variety of sudden changes of experience depicted in films. Love and hatred, happiness and family strife, peace and war, follow each other in rapid succession. The continuous change, although exaggerated in films, is characteristic of life in general.
~ Ven. Gen Lobsang Gyatso, The Four Noble Truths
While meditating on the body, do not hope or pray to be exempt from sickness. Without sickness, desires and passions can easily arise... While acting in society, do not hope or pray not to have any difficulties. Without difficulties, arrogance can easily arise... While meditating on the mind, do not hope or pray not to encounter hindrances. Without hindrances, present knowledge will not be challenged or broadened... While working, do not hope or pray not to encounter obstacles. Without obstacles, the vow to help others will not deepen... While interacting with others, do not hope or pray to gain personal profit. With the hope for personal gain, the spiritual nature of the encounter is diminished... While speaking with others, do not hope or pray not to be disagreed with. Without disagreement, self-righteousness can flourish ...
The Buddha spoke of sickness and suffering as effecive medicines. Times of difficulties and accidents are also times of freedom and realization. Obstacles can be a form of liberation. The Buddha reminded us that the army of evil can be the guards of the Dharma. Difficulties are required for success. The person who mistreats one can be one's good friend. One's enemies are as an orchard or garden. The act of doing someone a favor can be as base as the casting away a pair of old shoes. The abandonment of material possessions can be wealth and being wrongly accused can be the source of strength to work for justice.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Two Treasures: Buddhist Teachings Awakening & True Happiness
"By three things the wise person may be known. What three? He sees a shortcoming as it is. When he sees it, he tries to correct it. And when another acknowledges a shortcoming, the wise one forgives it as he should."
~ Buddha
Imagine vividly a situation where you have acted badly, one about which you feel guilty, and about which you wince even to think of it.
Then, as you breathe in, accept total responsibility for your actions in that particular situation, without in any way trying to justify your behavior. Acknowledge exactly what you have done wrong, and wholeheartedly ask for forgiveness. Now, as you breathe out, send out reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, and understanding.
So you breathe in blame, and breathe out the undoing of harm; you breathe in responsibility, breathe out healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
This exercise is particularly powerful and may give you the courage to go to see the person whom you have wronged, and the strength and willingness to talk to him or her directly and actually ask for forgiveness from the depths of your heart.
Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand-new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others.
Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. The Question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We don't have to travel far away to enjoy the blue sky. We don't have to leave our city or even our neighborhood to enjoy the eyes of a beautiful child. Even the air we breathe can be a source of joy.
We can smile, breathe, walk, and eat our meals in a way that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available. We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive at the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive.
Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment. ...
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
For more advice try pluggin the followin into Google -
"With a boundless mind one could cherish all living beings, radiating friendliness over the entire world, above, below, and all around without limit."
~ From the Maitri Sutra, quoted by Pema Chodron in The Places that Scare You
When we accept the way things are we are able to love everything and everybody. When we are not able to accept even one thing in this world right now, then how could we ever develop boundless love? Lack of acceptance is conflict. Conflict is pain. It is psychological pain. It is a spiritual illness. As long as our hearts are tormented by that pain, we do not have the strength to give our heart to anything and because of that it is impossible to bring about inner awakening. Enlightenment, you see, is just another name for boundless love.
It is almost impossible to practice loving-kindness towards all living beings without addressing, in a meaningful way, the innumerable problems arising in our own lives. It is a contradiction, you see. It does not work. If our heart is tormented because we are not able to accept things the way they are, then it is impossible to open our heart. It is impossible to let go of all of our defenses and embrace others. Therefore we have to constantly practice and deepen our awareness. We have to remind ourselves to accept things as they are. This is pretty much what the teachings called Mind Training are all about. Mind Training in Buddhism is about carrying those perspectives and even reciting slogans, phrases like "I shall accept the way things are."
The common enemy of all religious disciplines is selfishness of mind. For it is just this which causes ignorance, anger and passion, which are at the root of all the troubles of the world.
~ Dalai Lama
To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.
You may have heard me say this before, but it is the key point of the entire path, so it bears repeating: All that we are looking for in life — all the happiness, contentment, and peace of mind — is right here in the present moment. Our very own awareness is itself fundamentally pure and good. The only problem is that we get so caught up in the ups and downs of life that we don't take the time to pause and notice what we already have.
Don't forget to make space in your life to recognize the richness of your basic nature, to see the purity of your being and let its innate qualities of love, compassion, and wisdom naturally emerge. Nurture this recognition as you would a small seedling. Allow it to grow and flourish. ~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
"Nirvana may be the final object of attainment, but at the moment it is difficult to reach. Thus the practical and realistic aim is compassion, a warm heart, serving other people, helping others, respecting others, being less selfish. By practising these, you can gain benefit and happiness that remain longer. If you investigate the purpose of life and, with the motivation that results from this inquiry, develop a good heart - compassion and love. Using your whole life this way, each day will become useful and meaningful."
"Every human being has the same potential for compassion; the only question is whether we really take any care of that potential, and develop and implement it in our daily life. My hope is that more and more people will realise the value of compassion, and so follow the path of altruism. As for myself, ever since I became a Buddhist monk, that has been my real destiny - for usually I think of myself as just one simple Buddhist monk, no more and no less."
Imagine that you had gone all your life without ever washing, and then one day you decide to take a shower. You start scrubbing away, but then watch in horror as the dirt begins to ooze out of the pores of your skin and stream down your body. Something must be wrong: You were supposed to be getting cleaner and all you can see is grime. You panic and fling yourself out of the shower, convinced that you should never have begun. But you only end up even more dirty than before. You have no way of knowing that the wisest thing to do is to be patient and to finish the shower. It may look for a while as if you are getting even dirtier, but if you keep on washing, you will emerge fresh and clean. It's all a process, the process of purification.
Whenever doubt arises, see it simply as an obstacle, recognize it as an understanding that is calling out to be clarified or unblocked, and know that it is not a fundamental problem but simply a stage in the process of purification and learning. Allow the process to continue and complete itself, and never lose your trust or resolve. This is the way followed by all the great practitioners of the past, who used to say: "There is no armor like perseverance."
If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.
It may be true that the unexamined life is not worth living—but neither is the unlived life worth examining.
Quotes from Dan Millman - Author Way of the Peaceful Warrior
Comments
From some dude named Chogyam Trungpa -
"Compassion has nothing to do with achievement at all. It is spacious and very generous. When a person develops real compassion, he is uncertain whether he is being generous to others or to himself because compassion is enviromental generosity, without direction, without ” for me” and without ” for them”. It is filled with joy, spontaneously existing joy, constant joy in the sense of trust, in the sense that joy contains tremendous wealth, richness.”
“You have to be fully involved; you have to become one with what you are doing. So it is with giving things away. No matter how small the thing is in terms of value, one must be fully involved in the giving, so that a part of one’s ego is also given away. Through that one reaches the paramita, the transcendental act, of generosity, which is something beyond the ordinary.”
“The beginner in meditation/ resembles a hunting dog/ having a bad dream.” ~haiku by Chogyam Trungpa
“The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions and to all people, experiencing everything totally without mental reservations and blockages, so that one never withdraws or centralizes into oneself.”
“Magic is the power within oneself. You have enough strength, exertion and energy to view things as they are, personally, properly, and directly. You have the chance to experience the brightness of life and the haziness of life, which is also a source of power. The fantastically sharp-edged quality of life can be experienced personally and directly. There is a powerful sense of perception available to you.”
Peace ~ Love ~ Happiness
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
~ Pema Chodron
"To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit. But this place of warrior strength is in the heart.”
~ Jack Kornfield
“We have to study with our warm heart, not just with our brain.”
~ Shunryu Suzuki
“Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us. Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear. It allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal."
~ Dalai Lama
“When we accept the way things are, we are able to love everything and anybody. When we are not able to accept even one thing in this world right now, then how could we ever develop boundless love? Lack of acceptance is conflict. Conflict is pain. It is psychological pain. It is a spiritual illness. As long as our hearts are tormented by that pain, we do not have the strength to give our heart to anything and because of that it is impossible to bring about inner awakening. Enlightenment, you see, is just another name for boundless love.”
~ Anam Thubten (from “No Self, No Problem”)
Cheers
“What’s encouraging about meditation is that, even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we’re closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance.”
“Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic goodness of what we have and who we are, and of realizing that any wisdom that exists, exists in what we already have. We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we’re doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we’re doing. The key is to wake up, to become more alert, more inquisitive and curious about ourselves.”
“People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That’s not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn’t understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you’re given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.”
“Ego is like a room of your own, a room with a view, with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like. You want it your own way. You’d just like to have a little peace, you’d like to have a little happiness, you know, just gimme a break. But the more you think that way, the more you try to get life to come out so that it will always suit you, the more your fear of other people and what’s outside your room grows. Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start pulling down the shades and locking the door. When you do go out, you find the experience more and more ..."
"We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don’t like about our associates or our society. It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others. Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself."
Have a good one!
How vital it is to refrain from the temptation to judge ourselves or the teachings, and to be humorously aware of our condition, and to realize that we are, at the moment, as if many people all living in one person.
And how encouraging it can be to accept that from one perspective we all have huge problems, which we bring to the spiritual path and which indeed may have led us to the teachings, and yet to know from another point of view that ultimately our problems are not so real or so solid, or so insurmountable as we have told ourselves.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Namaste
The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind.
If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat.
Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well.
Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice; there is no other way of life than this way of life.
My life has been one long series of mistakes.
Cheers
For the Tibetans, Gesar is not only a martial warrior but also a spiritual one. To be a spiritual warrior means to develop a special kind of courage, one that is innately intelligent, gentle, and fearless. Spiritual warriors can still be frightened, but even so they are courageous enough to taste suffering, to relate clearly to their fundamental fear, and to draw out without evasion the lessons from difficulties.
Whatever you do, don’t shut off your pain; accept your pain and remain vulnerable. However desperate you become, accept your pain as it is, because it is in fact trying to hand you a priceless gift: the chance of discovering, through spiritual practice, what lies behind sorrow.
“Grief,” Rumi wrote, “can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.”
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Have a good one!
~ Jigmed Lingpa
“Everyone tries to remove superficial pain, but there is another class of techniques concerned with removing suffering on a deeper level – aiming, at a minimum, to diminish suffering in future lives and, beyond that, even to remove all forms of suffering for oneself as well as for all beings. Spiritual practice is of this deeper type. These techniques involve an adjustment of attitude; thus, spiritual practice basically means to adjust your thought well. In sanskrit, it is called ‘dharma’, which means ‘that which holds.’
~ Dalai Lama
“Buddha was a human being, like you or me. He never claimed divinity, he merely knew that he had the Buddha Nature, the seed of enlightenment, and that everyone else did too. The Buddha Nature is simply the birthright of every sentient being, and I always say, ‘Our Buddha Nature is as good as any Buddha’s Buddha Nature.’”
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
“From the time we open our eyes in the morning until we sleep at night, if we can pass the whole day with a kind-hearted mind and cheerful face, on good terms with people and talking pleasantly to them, our mind will be relaxed when we go to sleep at night.”
~ Ogyen Trinley Dorje
“Whatever grounds there are for making merit productive of a future birth, all those do not equal a sixteenth part of the liberation of mind by loving-kindness. The liberation of mind by loving-kindness surpasses them and shines forth, brilliant and bright.”
~ The Buddha (from “In the Buddha’s Words” translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi)
“All the peace and happiness of the whole globe, the peace and happiness of societies, the peace and happiness of family, the peace and happiness of the individual persons’ life, and the peace and happiness of all the animals and so forth, all depends on having loving kindness for each other.”
~ Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Enjoy!
"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there."
"The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling."
"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion."
"The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there."
"For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses. "
"If someone's ungrateful and you tell him he's ungrateful, okay, you've called him a name. You haven't solved anything."
"…the doctrinal differences between Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself."
"This inner peace of mind occurs on three levels of understanding. Physical quietness seems the easiest to achieve, although there are levels and levels of this too, as attested by the ability of Hindu mystics to live buried alive for many days. Mental quietness, in which one has no wandering thoughts at all, seems more difficult, but can be achieved. But value quietness, in which one has no wandering desires at all but simply performs the acts of his life without desire, that seems the hardest."
Have a good one!
Zen is not a religious doctrine passed from generation to generation. It is a living experience of life itself of which the traditional teachings are a faint echo. Zen teachings are often compared to a finger pointing at the moon. The finger is not the moon, and the teachings are not Zen. They gesture towards something ineffable and ultimately completely incommunicable. To see the moon it is necessary to stop looking at the pointing finger. Likewise, Zen teachings are only finally understood when they are abandoned.
Zen teaches nothing. Whatever teachings there are in Zen, they come out of one's own mind. We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way
- D.T. Suzuki
Zen encourages us to undergo strenuous spiritual practices to help us see through the illusion of separateness and experience enlightenment. Yet it also teaches that enlightenment can actually only occur spontaneously, and believing we are doing something, even spiritual practices, only endorse the false idea of the ego.
We are caught in a "Catch-22" situation. We need to free ourselves from the illusion of being a separate self. What can we do? The idea that there is a "someone" to do anything about the problem is the problem itself! Does Zen have a solution for this impossible dilemma? Mu!
Master Ekai meditated on a koan for six years, until one day he heard the monastery drum and was spontaneously enlightened. This koan was the exclamation "Mu!", which literally means "Not!" Ekai would often simply shout "Mu!" in reply to his students' questions as a way of pointing to an answer beyond the logical mind. "Mu!" declares "Anything you can think is not the answer." "Mu!" demands "Abandon your question and directly experience What-is."
Zen masters are renowned for their bizarre behaviour. But although the Zen masters may seem irrational, Zen obeys its own logic. Their aberrant actions graphically illustrate Zen teachings in a way that words cannot. Their eccentricities exemplify a way of being that is spontaneous and unconditioned.
The inner peace sought by Zen meditators is not the comforting dullness of sleep, but the super-awakeness of being completely present. Sometimes the alertness necessary is compared to that of someone facing a life and death situation. Or to having the most fascinationg thought you've ever had - only without the thought!
Imagine hanging from a cliff-face and you will know the alertness of Zen mind.
Have a good one!
The spiritual journey is one of continuous learning and purification. When you know this, you become humble. There is a famous Tibetan saying: “Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation.” And Milarepa said: “Do not entertain hopes for realization, but practice all your life.”
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Cheers
--Alfred Painter
Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -- because we will always want to have something else or something more.
--Brother David Steindl-Rast
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.
--Denis Waitley
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
--Eric Hoffer
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
--Cicero
Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.
--Lionel Hampton
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
--Albert Einstein
Cheers
If we develop inner awareness, which is like an inner space, we can ride the waves of life. People imagine that to be a meditator you have to always live in very tranquil situations and that you are likely to be inundated if a turbulent situation arises. This is true for beginners, just as it is for someone who is learning how to surf. At the beginning, they have to stick to the small waves otherwise they will be bowled over. But an expert surfer looks for the big waves. The greater the waves, the more fun, once you have your balance. The secret is to be balanced, to be poised. To be a good surfer you need to be neither too tense nor too relaxed, just balanced. This is what we need in our practice, too.
~ Ani Tenzin Palmo, from 'Reflections on a Mountain Lake: Teachings on Practical Buddhism'
When you begin to study Zen, you aim to attain realization. Your motive is good in so far as motive is concerned, but in your meditation you should aim at nothing. You may aim at realization to encourage yourself when you are not meditating, but beware of clinging entanglements. Encouragement is one thing, meditation is another. Do not mix them up. Carry your meditation as the eternal present, and saturate your everyday life with it.
~ Nyogen Senzaki, Excerpted from Buddhism and Zen
Following the instruction of a teacher, a practitioner may attain, in an instant, his true self, thereby realizing that he is ultimately no different from the Buddha. Hence it is said, “Originally, there is nothing,” which means simply that one must not underestimate oneself, and lack confidence. This is the teaching of “sudden enlightenment.”
Even after attaining some realization, however, one must always strive to cut off lingering mind-habits so that one can be fully transformed from an “ordinary person” into a “sage.” This is the teaching of “gradual cultivation,” emphasizing that we must “polish the mirror from moment to moment.” This is why pride can be such a hindrance. Lacking faith in one’s own nature is the sickness of those attached to scriptural authority, whereas pride is the disease of those who practice Zen meditation.
~ So Sahn (1520-1604), from The Mirror of Zen – The Classic Guide to Buddhist Practice by Zen Master So Sahn
Have a good one!
Be where you are; otherwise you will miss your life.
- Buddha
We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.
- Talmud
Of course there is not formula for success except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.
- Arthur Rubinstein
Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.
- Audre Lorde
No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.
- Barbara de Angelis
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
- Mark Twain
In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.
- Audre Lorde
The cause of all our personal problems and nearly all the problems of the world can be summed up in a single sentence: Human life is very deep, and our modern dominant lifestyle is not.
- Bo Lozoff
Experience is how life catches up with us and teaches us to love and forgive each other.
- Judy Collins
When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"
- Sydney J. Harris
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
- Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
People with opinions just go around bothering one another.
~ Buddha
Cheers!
~ St. Francis de Sales
Have a good one!
~ Agnes Repplier
"I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows."
~ Susan B. Anthony
"If you spent one-tenth of the time you devoted to distractions like chasing women or making money to spiritual practice, you would be enlightened in a few years."
~ Ramakrishna
"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly."
~ Richard Bach
"People who want to share their religious views with you, almost never want you to share yours with them."
~ Dave Barry
Goodwill towards all is true religion.
~ From the Buddhacarita
An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?"
~ Annie Dillard
"You talk to God, you're religious. God talks to you, you're psychotic."
~ Doris Egan
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
~ Albert Einstein
"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity."
~ Albert again
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
~ Galileo Galilei
"Religion is like going out to dinner with friends. Everyone may order something different, but everyone can still sit at the same table."
~ Dalai Lama
Enjoy!
In the same manner, the ground of the ordinary mind prevents us from breaking through to the skylike nature of our mind, even if we can still have glimpses of it. We have to break out of the ground of the ordinary mind altogether, to discover and let in the fresh air of Rigpa.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
~ Robina Courtin, Mandala Magazine December 2003
No words can describe it
No example can point to it
Samsara does not make it worse
Nirvana does not make it better
It has never been born
It has never ceased
It has never been liberated
It has never been deluded
It has never existed
It has never been nonexistent
It has no limits at all
It does not fall into any kind of category.
~ Dudjom Rinpoche
Once you have the View, although the delusory perceptions of samsara may arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear it’s not particularly disappointed either. There is a deep sense of contentment. You chuckle from inside as you see the facade of samsara and nirvana; the View will keep you constantly amused, with a little inner smile bubbling away all the time.
~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
For most of us, our natural mind or Buddha-nature is obscured by the limited self-image created by habitual neuronal patterns - which, in themselves, are simply a reflection o fthe unlimited capacity of the mind to create any condition it chooses. Natural mind is capable of producing anything, even ignorance of its own nature. In other words, not recognizing natural mind is simply an example of the mind's unlimited capacity to create whatever it wants. Whenever we feel fear, sadness, jealousy, desire, or any other emotion that contributes to our sense of vulnerability or weakness, we should give ourselves a nice pat on the back. We've just experienced the unlimited nature of the mind.
Although the true nature of the mind can't be described directly, that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try to develop some theoretical understanding about it. Even a limited understanding is at least a signpost, pointing the way toward direct experience. The Buddha understood that experiences impossible to describe in words could best be explained through stories and metaphors. In one text, he compared Tathagatagarbha (Buddha-nature) to a nugget of gold covered with mud and dirt.
Imagine you are a treasure hunter. One day, you discover a chunk of metal in the ground. You dig a hole, pull out the metal, take it home, and start to clean it. At first, one corner of the nugget reveals itself, bright and shining. Gradually, as you wash away the accumulated dirt and mud, the whole chunk is revealed as gold. So let me ask: Which is more valuable - the chunk of gold buried in mud, or the one you cleaned? Actually, the value is equal. Any difference between the dirty nugget and the clean is superficial.
~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret & Science of the Mind
Enjoy!
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Do not accept any of my words on faith,
Believing them just because I said them.
Be like an analyst buying gold, who cuts, burns,
And critically examines his product for authenticity.
Only accept what passes the test
By proving useful and beneficial in your life.
~ Buddha
There are different levels of faith. First, clear faith refers to the joy and clarity and change in our perceptions that we experience when we hear about the qualities of the Three Jewels and the lives of the Buddha and the great teachers. Longing faith is experienced when we think about the latter and are filled with a great desire to know more about their qualities and to acquire these ourselves. Confident faith comes through practicing the Dharma, when we acquire complete confidence in the truth of the teachings and the enlightenment of the Buddha. Finally, when faith has become so much a part of ourselves that even if our lives were at risk we could never give it up, it has become irreversible faith.
~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, The Excellent Path to Enlightenment
A practitioner needs faith, or trust.... Guru Rinpoche said that we should meditate in the same way that a sparrow enters a nest. A sparrow spends some time investigating whether or not it is safe to enter. Once his examination is over, he then enters unhesitatingly. That's a wonderful metaphor for practice. First clear up all your doubts about your technique, then throw yourself into the technique with no separation or self-consciousness. Of course, it's easy to say, but that is the direction toward which we should be moving.
~ Bruce Newman, A Beginner's Guide to Tibetan Buddhism
Devotion is the purest, quickest, and simplest way to realize the nature of mind and all things. As we progress in it, the process reveals itself as wonderfully interdependent: We, from our side, try continually to generate devotion, which itself generates glimpses of the nature of mind, and these glimpses only enhance and deepen our devotion to the master who is inspiring us. So in the end devotion springs out of wisdom: devotion and the living experience of the nature of mind become inseparable and inspire each other.
~ Sogyal again
Cheers!
However hard ego may try to sabotage the spiritual path, if you really continue on it, and work deeply with the practice of meditation, you will begin slowly to realize just how gulled you have been by ego’s promises: false hopes and false fears. Slowly you begin to understand that both hope and fear are enemies of your peace of mind; hopes deceive you, and leave you empty and disappointed, and fears paralyze you in the narrow cell of your false identity. You begin to see also just how all-encompassing the sway of ego has been over your mind, and in the space of freedom opened up by meditation, when you are momentarily released from grasping, you glimpse the exhilarating spaciousness of your true nature.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Cheers!
Sometimes when we see too much truth about ourselves suddenly mirrored in front of us by the teacher or the teachings, it is simply too difficult to face, too terrifying to recognize, too painful to accept as the reality about ourselves. We deny and reject it, in an absurd and desperate attempt to defend ourselves fromourselves,from the truth of who we really are. And when there are things too powerful or too difficult to accept about ourselves, we project them onto the world around us, usually onto those who help us and love us the most—our teacher, the teachings, our parent, or our closest friend.
How can we possibly penetrate the tough shield of this defensive system? The very best solution is when we can recognize ourselves that we are living duped by our own delusions. I have seen how for many people a glimpse of the truth, the true View, can bring the whole fantastic construction of wrong views, fabricated by ignorance, tumbling instantly to the ground.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Cheers!
Master: Why are you meditating?
Monk: Because I want to become a Buddha!
The master sat down and started polishing a stone. The curious young monk asked,
Monk: What are you doing?
Master: Trying to turn this stone into a mirror.
Monk: But you can't make mirrors out of stone.
Master: Neither can you become a Buddha by sitting there cross-legged all day!
Keep 'em comin!
For more on this theme ... plug the following into Google -
viewonbuddhism buddha nature
Here's one that caught my eye -
Once you have the View, although the delusory perceptions of samsara may arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear it’s not particularly disappointed either. There is a deep sense of contentment. You chuckle from inside as you see the facade of samsara and nirvana; the View will keep you constantly amused, with a little inner smile bubbling away all the time.
~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Have a good one!
"As we begin to develop awareness of the mind, the mind itself appears to divide into two. A new aspect of the mind arises. This is referred to variously as the witness, the seer, the knower, or the observer. It witnesses without judgment and without comment. Along with the arrival of the witness, a space appears within the mind. This enables us to see thoughts and emotions as mere thoughts and emotions, rather than as 'me' and 'mine.' When the thoughts and emotions are no longer seen as 'me' or 'mine', we begin to have choices. Certain thoughts and emotions are helpful, so we encourage them. Others are not so helpful, so we just let them go. All the thoughts and emotions are recognized and accepted. Nothing is suppressed. But now we have a choice about how to react. We can give energy to the ones, which are useful and skillful and withdraw energy from those which are not."
~ From Ani Tenzin Palmo, Reflections on a Mountain Lake: Teachings on Practical Buddhism
Have a good one!
Those who haven’t yet given birth to precious Bodhicitta,
May they give birth,
Those who have given birth,
May their Bodhicitta not lessen
but increase further and further.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Cheers!
Yet, ego is so terribly convincing, and we have been its dupe for so long, that the thought that we might ever become egoless terrifies us. To be egoless, ego whispers to us, is to lose all the rich romance of being human, to be reduced to a colorless robot or a brain-dead vegetable.
However hard ego may try to sabotage the spiritual path, if you really continue on it, and work deeply with the practice of meditation, you will begin slowly to realize just how gulled you have been by ego’s promises: false hopes and false fears. Slowly you begin to understand that both hope and fear are enemies of your peace of mind; hopes deceive you, and leave you empty and disappointed, and fears paralyze you in the narrow cell of your false identity. You begin to see also just how all-encompassing the sway of ego has been over your mind, and in the space of freedom opened up by meditation, when you are momentarily released from grasping, you glimpse the exhilarating spaciousness of your true nature.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Cheers!
-Thanissaro Bhikkhu, The Wings to Awakening (pp. 16-17)
"The challenge for anyone facing serious disease is how to balance determination and willpower with acceptance of human frailty and imperfection."
-Ken Cohen, Qigong: The Art & Science of Chinese Energy Healing
"Every time I hear the rush of a mountain stream, or the waves crashing on the shore, or my own heartbeat, I hear the sound of impermanence."
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Cheers!
Genuine compassion is a state of mind which is non-violent, non-harming and non-aggressive. This attitude is based on the wish for others to be free of their suffering and is associated with a sense of commitment, responsibility and respect for the other. It creates a positive, friendly and secure atmosphere. To develop compassion we can take the wish to be free of suffering for ourselves and then cultivate it to include and embrace others.
The value and benefit of compassion is obvious: if we understand, accept and even support that every human being has the wish to be happy, just like myself, then it is the basis of peace and therefore for happiness.
For more of this advice plug the followin into Google -
The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness
Have a good one!
Gradually, through this interplay of breaks and sitting, the barrier between meditation and everyday life will crumble, the contrast between them will dissolve, and you will find yourself increasingly in your natural pure presence, without distraction.
Then, as Dudjom Rinpoche used to say: “Even though the meditator may leave the meditation, the meditation will not leave the meditator.”
Cheers!
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
~ Theodore H. White
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
~ Mark Twain
Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.
~ Rabindranath Tagore
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
~ Rollo May
Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.
~ Raymond Lindquist
Have a good one!
~ Charlotte Joko Beck
"Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom."
~ Buddha
"Seek truth in meditation, not in moldy books. Look in the sky to find the moon, not in the pond."
~ Persian proverb
"Regular meditation opens the avenues of intuitional knowledge, makes the mind calm and steady, awakens an ecstatic feeling, and brings the practitioner in contact with the source of his/her very being."
~ Swami Sivananda
For more on meditation ... plug the followin into Google -
cosmiclotus meditationquotations
Cheers!
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddha’s Enlightenment
Have a good one!
Cheers!
~ Bob Proctor
"To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven."
~ Johannes A. Gaertner
"If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily."
~ Gerald Good
"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful."
~ Buddha
"Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you."
~ Eileen Caddy
Have a good one!
~ Henepola Gunaratana, from 'Mindfulness in Plain English'.
Feelings of suffering change into those of happiness. Feelings of happiness change into suffering. Both arise in dependence upon internal and external causes which change. For example, we see food as pleasurable, but if we eat too much, then it causes suffering. When we are young, we see our bodies as a source of pleasure. As we become older, the same body becomes a source of suffering.
Just as a wave is always changing, so the nature of suffering is always to change. It may be experienced as pleasure or as suffering, but it arises from the same source. Pleasure arises from suffering. Seeing pleasure as happiness constitutes suffering.
... Pain and pleasure are of the same nature. Although they look different at different times, they both arise from the same sea of delusion and karmic action. Pleasure or pain, one or the other, arises and then falls back into the ocean. Thus we can conclude that pleasure and pain within the ocean of samsara are basically suffering, and dissolve into suffering.
This becomes evident in the wide variety of sudden changes of experience depicted in films. Love and hatred, happiness and family strife, peace and war, follow each other in rapid succession. The continuous change, although exaggerated in films, is characteristic of life in general.
~ Ven. Gen Lobsang Gyatso, The Four Noble Truths
While meditating on the body, do not hope or pray to be exempt from sickness. Without sickness, desires and passions can easily arise... While acting in society, do not hope or pray not to have any difficulties. Without difficulties, arrogance can easily arise... While meditating on the mind, do not hope or pray not to encounter hindrances. Without hindrances, present knowledge will not be challenged or broadened... While working, do not hope or pray not to encounter obstacles. Without obstacles, the vow to help others will not deepen... While interacting with others, do not hope or pray to gain personal profit. With the hope for personal gain, the spiritual nature of the encounter is diminished... While speaking with others, do not hope or pray not to be disagreed with. Without disagreement, self-righteousness can flourish ...
The Buddha spoke of sickness and suffering as effecive medicines. Times of difficulties and accidents are also times of freedom and realization. Obstacles can be a form of liberation. The Buddha reminded us that the army of evil can be the guards of the Dharma. Difficulties are required for success. The person who mistreats one can be one's good friend. One's enemies are as an orchard or garden. The act of doing someone a favor can be as base as the casting away a pair of old shoes. The abandonment of material possessions can be wealth and being wrongly accused can be the source of strength to work for justice.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Two Treasures: Buddhist Teachings Awakening & True Happiness
Cheers!
~ Buddha
Imagine vividly a situation where you have acted badly, one about which you feel guilty, and about which you wince even to think of it.
Then, as you breathe in, accept total responsibility for your actions in that particular situation, without in any way trying to justify your behavior. Acknowledge exactly what you have done wrong, and wholeheartedly ask for forgiveness. Now, as you breathe out, send out reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, and understanding.
So you breathe in blame, and breathe out the undoing of harm; you breathe in responsibility, breathe out healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
This exercise is particularly powerful and may give you the courage to go to see the person whom you have wronged, and the strength and willingness to talk to him or her directly and actually ask for forgiveness from the depths of your heart.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Have a good one!
Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. The Question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We don't have to travel far away to enjoy the blue sky. We don't have to leave our city or even our neighborhood to enjoy the eyes of a beautiful child. Even the air we breathe can be a source of joy.
We can smile, breathe, walk, and eat our meals in a way that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available. We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive at the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive.
Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment. ...
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
For more advice try pluggin the followin into Google -
viewonbuddhism depression
Have a good one!
"With a boundless mind one could cherish all living beings, radiating friendliness over the entire world, above, below, and all around without limit."
~ From the Maitri Sutra, quoted by Pema Chodron in The Places that Scare You
When we accept the way things are we are able to love everything and everybody. When we are not able to accept even one thing in this world right now, then how could we ever develop boundless love? Lack of acceptance is conflict. Conflict is pain. It is psychological pain. It is a spiritual illness. As long as our hearts are tormented by that pain, we do not have the strength to give our heart to anything and because of that it is impossible to bring about inner awakening. Enlightenment, you see, is just another name for boundless love.
It is almost impossible to practice loving-kindness towards all living beings without addressing, in a meaningful way, the innumerable problems arising in our own lives. It is a contradiction, you see. It does not work. If our heart is tormented because we are not able to accept things the way they are, then it is impossible to open our heart. It is impossible to let go of all of our defenses and embrace others. Therefore we have to constantly practice and deepen our awareness. We have to remind ourselves to accept things as they are. This is pretty much what the teachings called Mind Training are all about. Mind Training in Buddhism is about carrying those perspectives and even reciting slogans, phrases like "I shall accept the way things are."
~ Anam Thubten, No Self, No Problem
Enjoy!
~ Dalai Lama
To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.
~ Buddha
Have a good one!
Don't forget to make space in your life to recognize the richness of your basic nature, to see the purity of your being and let its innate qualities of love, compassion, and wisdom naturally emerge. Nurture this recognition as you would a small seedling. Allow it to grow and flourish.
~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Letter from Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche upon Entering Retreat
Here's some of the Dalai Lama -
"Nirvana may be the final object of attainment, but at the moment it is difficult to reach. Thus the practical and realistic aim is compassion, a warm heart, serving other people, helping others, respecting others, being less selfish. By practising these, you can gain benefit and happiness that remain longer. If you investigate the purpose of life and, with the motivation that results from this inquiry, develop a good heart - compassion and love. Using your whole life this way, each day will become useful and meaningful."
"Every human being has the same potential for compassion; the only question is whether we really take any care of that potential, and develop and implement it in our daily life. My hope is that more and more people will realise the value of compassion, and so follow the path of altruism. As for myself, ever since I became a Buddhist monk, that has been my real destiny - for usually I think of myself as just one simple Buddhist monk, no more and no less."
Have a good one!
Here's some of Sogyal Rinpoche -
Imagine that you had gone all your life without ever washing, and then one day you decide to take a shower. You start scrubbing away, but then watch in horror as the dirt begins to ooze out of the pores of your skin and stream down your body. Something must be wrong: You were supposed to be getting cleaner and all you can see is grime. You panic and fling yourself out of the shower, convinced that you should never have begun. But you only end up even more dirty than before. You have no way of knowing that the wisest thing to do is to be patient and to finish the shower. It may look for a while as if you are getting even dirtier, but if you keep on washing, you will emerge fresh and clean. It's all a process, the process of purification.
Whenever doubt arises, see it simply as an obstacle, recognize it as an understanding that is calling out to be clarified or unblocked, and know that it is not a fundamental problem but simply a stage in the process of purification and learning. Allow the process to continue and complete itself, and never lose your trust or resolve. This is the way followed by all the great practitioners of the past, who used to say: "There is no armor like perseverance."
Have a good one!
For a great site about the Dalai Lama plug the following into your favourite search engine -
living life fully dalai
There is heaps of pages at that site! For examples -
living life fully contentment quotes
Cheers!
viewonbuddhism spiritual path
Cheers!
It may be true that the unexamined life is not worth living—but neither is the unlived life worth examining.
Quotes from Dan Millman - Author Way of the Peaceful Warrior