Sogyal Rinpoche

1:Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,

2:We may idealize freedom, but when it comes to our habits, we are completely enslaved. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,

3:Action is being truly observant of your own thoughts, good and bad, looking into the true nature of whatever thoughts may arise, neither tracing the past nor inviting the future, …" ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,", (1994).,

4:The fear that impermanence awakens in us, that nothing is real and nothing lasts, is, we come to discover, our greatest friend because it drives us to ask: If everything dies & changes, then what is really true?" ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying", (1994),

5:There are so many ways of making the approach to meditation as joyful as possible. You can find the music that most exalts you and use it to open your heart and mind. You can collect pieces of poetry, or quotations of lines of teachings that over the years have moved you, and keep them always at hand to elevate your spirit. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

6:Quoting Dudjom Rinpoche on the buddha-nature: 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 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

7:Patrul Rinpoche tells the story of an old frog who had lived all his life in a dank well. One day a frog from the sea paid him a visit. "Where do you come from?" asked the frog in the well. "From the great ocean," he replied. "How big is your ocean?" "It's gigantic." "You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?" "Bigger." "Bigger? You mean half as big?" "No, even bigger." "Is it . . . as big as this well?" "There's no comparison." "That's impossible! I've got to see this for myself." They set off together. When the frog from the well saw the ocean, it was such a shock that his head just exploded into pieces. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,

8:Recommended Reading
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
DH Lawrence - The Rainbow
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera
Karl Ove Knausgaard - My Struggle
Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse
Ben Lerner - The Topeka School
Sally Rooney - Conversations With Friends
Nell Zink - The Wallcreeper
Elena Ferrante - The Days of Abandonment
Jack Kerouac - Dharma Bums
Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass
Michael Murphy - Golf in the Kingdom
Barbara Kingsolver - Prodigal Summer
Albertine Sarrazin - Astragal
Rebecca Solnit - The Faraway Nearby
Michael Paterniti - Love and Other Ways of Dying
Rainer Maria Rilke - Book of Hours
James Baldwin - Another Country
Roberto Calasso - Ka
Translation by S. Radhakrishan - Principle Upanisads
Chogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
Translation by Georg Feuerstein - Yoga Sutra
Richard Freeman - The Mirror of Yoga
Translation by S. Radhakrishan - The Bhagavad Gita
Shrunyu Suzuki - Zen Mind Beginner's Mind
Heinrich Zimmer - Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization
Sogyal Rinpoche - The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Joseph Campbell - Myths of Light
Joseph Campbell - The Hero With A Thousand Faces
Sri Aurobindo - Savitri
Thomas Meyers - Anatomy Trains
Wendy Doniger - The Hindus ~ Jason Bowman, http://www.jasonbowmanyoga.com/recommended-reading,

* WISDOM TROVE *

* NEWFULLDB 2.4M *

1:"Light must come from inside." ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

2:There is no armor like perseverance. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

3:Meditation is bringing the mind home. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

4:OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

5:learning to live is learning to let go ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

6:Learning to live is learning to let go. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

7:The act of meditation is being spacious. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

8:Aprender a vivir es aprender a desprenderse. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

9:Let the sky outside awake a sky inside your mind. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

10:Life and death are in the mind, and nowhere else. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

11:People will die as they have lived, as themselves. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

12:Thich Nhat Hanh writes with the voice of the Buddha. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

13:Everything can be used as an invitation to meditation ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

14:Real devotion is an unbroken receptivity to the truth ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

15:The future is very much in our hands--in our actions. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

16:You see, we are all dying. It’s only a matter of time. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

17:Speak or act with a pure mind and happiness will follow. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

18:Our buddha nature is as good as any buddha’s buddha nature. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

19:Sitting like a mountain let your mind rise and fly and soar. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

20:Don’t get too excited. In the end, it’s neither good nor bad. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

21:Tomorrow or the next life - which comes first, we never know. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

22:In this complex world, the best way to survive is to be genuine. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

23:Rely on the message of the teacher, not on his personality; Rely ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

24:Theories are like patches on a coat, one day they just wear off. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

25:Tibetan thangka paintings and derive strength from their beauty. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

26:Knowing that I cannot escape it, I see no point in worrying about ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

27:Let your heart go out in spontaneous and immeasurable compassion. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

28:The key to finding a happy balance in modern lives is simplicity. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

29:Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

30:"You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light." ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

31:Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

32:We are acting as if we were the last generation on the planet. Without ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

33:When one past thought has ceased and a future thought has not yet risen, ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

34:life is inherently sacred and must be lived with sacred intensity and purpose ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

35:The simplicity of total trust is one of the most powerful forces in the world. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

36:There would be no chance to get to know death at all ...if it happened only once. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

37:Sometimes even when the cell door is flung open, the prisoner chooses not to escape. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

38:We may idealize freedom, but when it comes to our habits, we are completely enslaved. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

39:A real miracle, he said, was if someone could liberate just one negative emotion. More ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

40:What should we "do" with the mind in meditation? Nothing. Just leave it, simply, as it is. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

41:More important than finding the teacher is finding and following the truth of the teaching. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

42:Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

43:The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this lifetime. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

44:Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

45:Offer up every joy, be awake at all moments to the news that is always arriving out of silence. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

46:We must never forget that it is through our actions, words, and thoughts that we have a choice. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

47:Even though the meditator may leave the meditation, the meditation will not leave the meditator. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

48:As the Buddha said: "I have shown you the way to liberation,
now you must take it for yourself. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

49:The most essential thing in life is to establish an unafraid, heartfelt communication with others. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

50:...we and all sentient beings fundamentally have the buddha nature as our innermost essence. . . . ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

51:how hollow and futile life can be when it's founded on a false belief in continuity and permanence. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

52:Anyone looking honestly at life will see that we live in a constant state of suspense and ambiguity. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

53:Our problems, all come from nothing; they are all based on a misunderstanding that does not even exist. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

54:Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,

55:Just as the ocean has waves or the sun has rays, so the minds's own radiance is its thoughts and emotions. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

56:responsabilité. Parfois, lorsque la porte de la cellule s’ouvre, le prisonnier choisit de ne pas s’évader. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

57:This dying forces you to look into yourself. And in this, compassion is the only way. Love is the only way. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

58:And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

59:Of all footprints That of the elephant is supreme; Of all mindfulness meditations That on death is supreme.7 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

60:The spiritual journey is one of continuous learning and purification. When you know this, you become humble. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

61:What is really baffling about life is that sometimes, despite all our confusion, we can also be really wise! ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

62:This world can seem marvelously convincing until death collapses the illusion and evicts us from our hiding place. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

63:Why, if we are as pragmatic as we claim, don't we begin to ask ourselves seriously: Where does our real future lie? ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

64:The Western poet Rainer Maria Rilke has said that our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure.12 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

65:Whatever we have done with our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything, counts. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

66:Ce que vous êtes est ce que vous avez été », disait le Bouddha ; « ce que vous serez est ce que vous faites maintenant ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

67:When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion.”4 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

68:There is only one law in the universe that never changes-- that all things change, and that all things are impermanent. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

69:When I came to the West, I realized there was much hunger for spiritual teachings, but no environment for spirituality. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

70:Living with the immediacy of death helps you sort out your priorities in life. It helps you to live a less trivial life. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

71:I can't say it strongly enough; to integrate meditation in action is the whole ground and point and purpose of meditation ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

72:The whole of meditation practice can be essentialized into these 3 crucial points: Bring your mind home. Release. And relax! ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

73:We may idealize freedom, but when it comes to our habits, we are completely enslaved. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,

74:whatever state of mind we are in now, whatever kind of person we are now: that’s what we will be like at the moment of death, ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

75:Samsara is the mind turned outwardly, lost in its projections. Nirvana is the mind turned inwardly, recognizing its true nature. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

76:If the mind is not contrived, it is spontaneously blissful, just as water, when not agitated, is by nature transparent and clear. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

77:Western laziness consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

78:The secret is not to “think” about thoughts, but to allow them to flow through the mind, while keeping your mind free of afterthoughts. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

79:There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; my philosophy is kindness. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

80:What most of us need, almost more than anything, is the
courage and humility really to ask for help, from the depths of
our hearts ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

81:If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

82:There is only one way of attaining liberation and of obtaining the omniscience of enlightenment: following an authentic spiritual master. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

83:So one moment you have lost something precious, and then, in the very next moment, you find your mind is resting in a deep state of peace. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

84:Our society promotes cleverness instead of wisdom, and celebrates the most superficial, harsh, and least useful aspects of our intelligence. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

85:The absolute truth cannot be realized within the domain of the ordinary mind, and the path beyond the ordinary mind is the path of the heart. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

86:William Blake: He who binds to himself a Joy, Does the winged life destroy; He who kisses the Joy as it flies, Lives in Eternity’s sunrise. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

87:As long as you cultivate stillness, you may enjoy peace, but whenever your mind is a little bit disturbed, deluded thoughts will set in again. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

88:William Blake: He who binds to himself a Joy, Does the winged life destroy; He who kisses the Joy as it flies, Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.7 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

89:As Stephen Levine says: “When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion.”4 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

90:It is compassion, then, that is the best protection; it is also, as the great masters of the past have always known, the source of all healing. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

91:And when you talk about realization, accomplishment for that matter enlightenment is that when you realize the fundamental essence of your mind. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

92:The masters say if you create an auspicious condition in your body and your environment then meditation and realization will automatically arise. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

93:Meditation is not something that you can “do”; it is something that has to happen spontaneously, only when the practice has been perfected. However, ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

94:What we have to learn, in both meditation and in life, is to be free of attachment to the good experiences and free of aversion to the negative ones. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

95:What we have to learn, in both meditation and in life, is to be free of attachment to the good experiences, and free of aversion to the negative ones. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

96:Just because we go through a difficult situation, it doesn’t mean that the future is predetermined. The future is very much in our hands, in our actions. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

97:The nature of mind is just too close to be recognized. Just as we are unable to see our own face, mind finds it difficult to look into its own nature. 2. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

98:What we have to learn, in both meditation and in life, is to be free of
attachment to the good experiences, and free of aversion to the negative ones. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

99:182. "You must constantly nourish openness, breadth of vision, willingness, enthusiasm, and reverence, that will change the whole atmosphere of your mind." ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

100:There is a famous saying: "If the mind is not contrived, it is spontaneously blissful, just as water, when not agitated, is by nature transparent and clear". ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

101:Para la persona que se ha preparado y ha practicado, la muerte llega no como una derrota, sino como un triunfo, el momento más glorioso que corona toda la vida. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

102:Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life reveals just the opposite: that letting go is the real path to freedom. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

103:Because the dying also are unable to help themselves, we should relieve them of discomfort and anxiety, and assist them, as far as we can, to die with composure. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

104:Real devotion is an unbroken receptivity to the truth. Real devotion is rooted in an awed and reverent gratitude, but one that is lucid, grounded, and intelligent. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

105:What the world needs more than anything are Bodhisattvas of peace, lawyers, politicians, teachers working tirelessly for the enlightenment of themselves and others. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

106:The past is the past, the future not yet risen, and even the present thought, as we experience it, becomes the past. The only thing we really have is nowness, is now. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

107:We are acting as if we were the last generation on the planet. Without a radical change in heart, in mind, in vision, the earth will end up like Venus, charred and dead. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

108:The definition of mantra is "that which protects the mind." That which protects the mind from negativity, or that which protects you from your own mind, is called mantra. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

109:Modern society seems to be a celebration of all the things that lead away from the Truth, make Truth hard to live for, and discourage people from even believing that it exists. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

110:Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

111:will die, What has been gathered will be dispersed, What has been accumulated will be exhausted, What has been built up will collapse, And what has been high will be brought low. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

112:Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life itself reveals again and again the opposite: that letting go is the path to real freedom. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

113:This world can seem marvellously convincing until death collapses the illusion and evicts us from our hiding place. What will happen to us then if we have no clue of any deeper reality? ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

114:The purpose of reflecting on death is to make a real change in the depths of your heart, and to come to learn how to avoid the “hole in the sidewalk,” and how to “walk down another street. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

115:train in compassion is to know that all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honor all those who suffer, and to know that you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

116:We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. MONTAIGNE ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

117:Yet is our deepest desire is truly to live and go on living, why do we blindly insist that death is the end? Why not at least try and explore the possibility that there may be a life after? ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

118:We need to make a very clear distinction between what is in our ego’s self-interest and what is in our ultimate interest; it is from mistaking one for the other that all our suffering comes. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

119:In the Buddhist approach, life and death are seen as one whole, where death is the beginning of another chapter of life. Death is the mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

120:...learn not to overstretch ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations, but to simplify our lives more and more. The key to finding a happy balance in modern lives is simplicity. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

121:What is born will die, What has been gathered will be dispersed, What has been accumulated will be exhausted, What has been built up will collapse, And what has been high will be brought low. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

122:Generally we waste our lives, distracted from our true selves, in endless activity. Meditation is the way to bring us back to ourselves, where we can really experience and taste our full being. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

123:But, in fact, impermanence is like some of the people we meet in life—difficult and disturbing at first, but on deeper acquaintance far friendlier and less unnerving than we could have imagined. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

124:The purpose of meditation is to awaken in us the sky-like nature of mind, and to introduce us to that which we really are, our unchanging pure awareness, which underlies the whole of life and death ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

125:How many of us are swept away by what I have come to call an 'active laziness'?
It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

126:Taking impermanence truly to heart is to be slowly freed from the idea of grasping, from our flawed and destructive view of permanence, from the false passion for security on which we have built everything. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

127:True spirituality is to be aware that if we are interdependent with everything and everyone else, even our smallest, least significant thought, word and action have real consequences throughout the universe. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

128:Just as if you put your finger into water, it will get wet, and if you put it into fire, it will burn, so if you invest your mind in the wisdom mind of the Buddhas, it will transform into their wisdom nature. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

129:That goodness is what survives death, a fundamental goodness that is in each and every one of us. The whole of our life is a teaching of how to uncover that strong goodness, and a training toward realizing it. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

130:Pour commencer à luy oster son plus grand avantage contre nous, prenons voye toute contraire à la commune. Ostons luy l’estrangeté, pratiquons-la, accoustumons-la, n’ayant rien si souvent en la teste que la mort… ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

131:Our lives are lived in intense and anxious struggle, in a swirl of speed and aggression, in competing, grasping, possessing and achieving, forever burdening ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

132:The Dalai Lama has warned: ‘Too many people have the Dharma only on their lips. Instead of using the Dharma to destroy their own negative thoughts, they regard the Dharma as a possession and themselves as the owner. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

133:Notre société est vouée presque exclusivement au culte de l’ego et à ses tristes fantasmes de réussite et de pouvoir ; elle célèbre les forces mêmes d’avidité et d’ignorance qui sont en train de détruire notre planète. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

134:Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

135:Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

136:Don’t worry about anything. Even if you find your attention wandering, there is no particular ‘thing’ you have to hold onto. Just let go, and drift in the awareness of the blessing. Don’t let small, niggling questions distract ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

137:Saints and mystics throughout history have adorned their realisations with different names and given them different faces and interpretations, but what they are all fundamentally experiencing is the essential nature of the mind. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

138:Tertön Sogyal, the Tibetan Mystic, said that he was not really impressed by someone who could turn the floor into the ceiling or fire into water. A real miracle, he said, was if someone could liberate just one negative emotion. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

139:Planning for the future is like going fishing in a dry gulch; Nothing ever works out as you wanted, so give up all your schemes and ambitions. If you have got to think about something— Make it the uncertainty of the hour of your death ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

140:discover and develop, naturally and spontaneously, a compassionate desire to serve all beings, as well as a direct knowledge of how best you can do so, with whatever skill or ability you have, in whatever circumstances you find yourself. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

141:Planning for the future is like going fishing in a dry gulch; Nothing ever works out as you wanted, so give up all your schemes and ambitions. If you have got to think about something— Make it the uncertainty of the hour of your death . . ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

142:I shall never forget when Dudjom Rinpoche, in a moment of intimacy, leaned toward me and said in his soft, hoarse, slightly high-pitched voice: “You know, don’t you, that actually all these things around us go away, just go away . . .” With ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

143:Don't you notice that there are particular moments when you are naturally inspired to introspection? Work with them gently, for these are the moments when you can go through a powerful experience, and your whole worldview can change quickly. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

144:Our task is to strike a balance, to find a middle way, to learn not to overextend ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations, but to simplify our lives more and more. The key to finding a happy balance in modern life is simplicity. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

145:Do not make the mistake of imagining that the nature of
mind is exclusive to our mind only. It is in fact the nature of
everything. It can never be said too often that to realize the
nature of mind is to realize the nature of all things. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

146:The posture we take when we meditate signifies that we are linking absolute and relative, sky and ground, heaven and earth, like two wings of a bird, integrating the skylike, deathless nature of mind and the ground of our transient, mortal nature. The ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

147:When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don't actually "become" a buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

148:Why exactly are we so frightened of death that we avoid looking at it altogether? Somewhere, deep down, we know we cannot avoid facing death forever. We know, in Milarepa's words: "This thing called 'corpse' we dread so much is living with us here and now." ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

149:So often we want happiness, but the very way we pursue it is so clumsy and unskillful that it brings only more sorrow. Usually we assume we must grasp in order to have that something that will ensure our happiness. [...] Learning to live is learning to let go. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

150:The nature of everything is illusory and ephemeral, Those with dualistic perception regard suffering as happiness, Like they who lick the honey from a razor’s edge. How pitiful they who cling strongly to concrete reality: Turn your attention within, my heart friends.5 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

151:All too often people come to meditation in the hope of extraordinary results, like visions, lights, or some supernatural miracle. When no such thing occurs, they feel extremely disappointed. But the real miracle of meditation is more ordinary and much more useful. . . . ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

152:It is important to remember always that the principle of egolessness does not mean that there was an ego in the first place, and the Buddhists did away with it. On the contrary, it means there was never any ego at all to begin with. To realize that is called "egolessness. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

153:Peaceful death is really an essential human right, more essential perhaps even than the right to vote or the right to justice; it is a right on which, all religious traditions tell us, a great deal depends for the well-being and spiritual future of the dying person. There ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

154:Once an old woman came to Buddha and asked him how to meditate. He told her to remain aware of every movement of her hands as she drew the water from the well, knowing that if she did, she would soon find herself in that state of alert and spacious calm that is meditation. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

155:How often attachment is mistaken for love! Even when the relationship is a good one, love is spoiled by attachment, with its insecurity, possessiveness, and pride; and then when love is gone, all you have left to show for it are the “souvenirs” of love, the scars of attachment. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

156:Just look at your mind for a few minutes. You will see that it is like a flea, constantly hopping to and fro. You will see that thoughts arise without any reason, without any connection. Swept along by the chaos of every moment, we are the victims of the fickleness of our mind. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

157:Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating - the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to - you have uncovered in yourself your own wise guide. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

158:When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

159:when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

160:Whatever we do, with our body, speech or mind, will have a corresponding result. Each action, even the smallest, is pregnant with its consequences.

The results of our actions are often delayed.

What you are is what you have been, what you will be is what you do now. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

161:Nothing could be further from the truth. But in a world dedicated to distraction, silence and stillness terrify us; we protect ourselves from them with noise and frantic busyness. Looking into the nature of our mind is the last thing we would dare to do. Sometimes I think we don’t want to ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

162:ego, then, is the absence of true knowledge of who we really are, together with its result: a doomed clutching on, at all costs, to a cobbled together and makeshift image of ourselves, an inevitably chameleon charlatan self that keeps changing and has to, to keep alive the fiction of its existence. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

163:Sometimes I think the greatest achievement of modern culture its its brilliant selling of samsara and its barren distractions. Modern society seems to me a celebration of all the things that lead away from the truth, make truth hard to live for, and discourage people from even believing that it exists. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

164:Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death? When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into your life now... and come to face the truth of your self. Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

165:The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this life. For it is only through meditation that you can undertake the journey to discover your true nature, and so find the stability and confidence you will need to live, and die, well; Meditation is the road to enlightenment. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

166:What a beautiful and what a healing mystery it is that from
contemplating, continually and fearlessly, the truth of change
and impermanence, we come slowly to find ourselves face to
face, in gratitude and joy, with the truth of the changeless,
with the truth of the deathless, unending nature of mind! ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

167:The point is not how long you meditate; the point is whether the practice actually brings you to a certain state of mindfulness and presence, where you are a little open and able to connect with your heart essence. And five minutes of wakeful sitting practice is of far greater value than twenty minutes of dozing! ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

168:Looking at the world today, we might easily forget that the main purpose of our life - you could call it the heart of being human - is to be happy. All of us share the same wish, and the same right, to seek happiness and avoid suffering. Even following a spiritual path, or the religious life, is a quest for happiness. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

169:Sit, then, as if you were a mountain, with all the unshakeable, steadfast majesty of a mountain. A mountain is completely natural and at ease with itself, however strong the winds that try to bother it, however thick the dark clouds that swirl around its peak. Sitting like a mountain, let your mind rise and fly and soar ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

170:The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present. CHUANG TZU ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

171:There are so many ways of making the approach to meditation as joyful as possible. You can find the music that most exalts you and use it to open your heart and mind. You can collect pieces of poetry, or quotations of lines of teachings that over the years have moved you, and keep them always at hand to elevate your spirit. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

172:There are so many ways of making the approach to meditation as joyful as possible. You can find the music that most exalts you and use it to open your heart and mind. You can collect pieces of poetry, or quotations of lines of teachings that over the years have moved you, and keep them always at hand to elevate your spirit. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

173:La naissance d’un homme est la naissance de sa douleur. Plus il vit longtemps et plus il devient stupide, parce que son angoisse d’éviter une mort inévitable s’intensifie sans relâche. Quelle amertume ! Il vit pour ce qui est toujours hors de portée ! Sa soif de survie dans le futur le rend incapable de vivre dans le présent. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

174:Whatever you find yourself thinking, let that thought rise and settle, without any constraint. Don’t grasp at it, feed it, or indulge it; don’t cling to it and don’t try to solidify it. Neither follow thoughts nor invite them; be like the ocean looking at its own waves, or the sky gazing down on the clouds that pass through it. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

175:We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don't know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

176: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. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

177:The nature
of mind is the nature of everything." I wonder if this threefold
process the bardos reveal is true not only, as we discovered, of
all the different levels of consciousness and of all the different
experiences of consciousness, both in life and death, but also
perhaps of the actual nature of the universe itself ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

178:At every moment in our lives we need compassion, but what more urgent moment could there be than when we are dying? What more wonderful and consoling gift could you give to dying people than the knowledge that they are being prayed for, and that you are taking on their suffering and purifying their negative karma through your practice for them? ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

179:Even if they don't know that you are practicing for them, you are helping them and in turn they are helping you. They are actively helping you to develop your compassion, and so to purify and heal yourself. For me, all dying people are teachers, giving to all those who help them a chance to transform themselves through developing their compassion. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

180:Spiritual truth is not something elaborate and esoteric, it is in fact profound common sense. When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don’t actually “become” a buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

181:We often wonder: "How will I be when I die?" The answer to that is that whatever state of mind we are in now, whatever kind of person we are now, that's what we will be like at the moment of death, if we do not change. This is why it is so absolutely important to use this lifetime to purify our mindstream, and so our basic being and character, while we can. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

182:{While meditating} I sit quietly and rest in the nature of mind; I don't question or doubt whether I am in the "correct" state or not. There is no effort, only rich understanding, wakefulness, and unshakable certainty. When I am in the nature of mind, the ordinary mind is no longer there. There is no need to sustain or confirm a sense of being: I simply am. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

183:Every subatomic interaction consists of the annihilation of the original particles and the creation of new subatomic particles. The subatomic world is a continual dance of creation and annihilation, of mass changing into energy and energy changing to mass. Transient forms sparkle in and out of existence, creating a never-ending, forever newly created reality. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

184:I often think of the words of the great Buddhist master Padmasambhava: "Those who believe they have plenty of time get ready only at the time of death. Then they are ravaged by regret. But isn't it far too late?" What more chilling commentary on the modern world could there be than most people die unprepared for death, as they have lived, unprepared for life? ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

185:Every subatomic interaction consists of the annihilation of the original particles and the creation of new subatomic particles. The subatomic world is a continual dance of creation and annihilation, of mass changing into energy and energy changing to mass. Transient forms sparkle in and out of existence, creating a never-ending, forever newly created reality.8 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

186:More and more, I have come to realize how thoughts and concepts are all that block us from always being . . . in the absolute. . . . When the view is there, thoughts are seen for what they truly are: fleeting and transparent, and only relative. . . . You do not cling to thoughts and emotions or reject them, but welcome them all within the vast embrace of Rigpa. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

187:Each time the losses and deceptions of life teach us about impermanence, they bring us closer to the truth. When you fall from a great height, there is only one possible place to land: on the ground-the ground of truth. And if you have the understanding that comes from spiritual practice, then falling is in no way a disaster, but the discovery of an inner refuge. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

188:Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn't that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own? ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

189:Quoting Dudjom Rinpoche on the buddha-nature: 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 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

190:Quoting Dudjom Rinpoche on the buddha-nature: 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 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

191:Always recognize the dreamlike qualities of life and reduce attachment and aversion. Practice good-heartedness toward all beings. Be loving and compassionate, no matter what others do to you. What they will do will not matter so much when you see it as a dream. The trick is to have positive intention during the dream. This is the essential point. This is true spirituality.10 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

192:We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don´t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.

Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

193:Again and again we need to appreciate the subtle workings of the teachings and the practice, and even when there is no extraordinary, dramatic change, to persevere with calm and patience. How important it is to be skillful and gentle with ourselves, without becoming disheartened or giving up, but trusting the spiritual path and knowing that it has its own laws and its own dynamics. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

194:The successive existences in a series of rebirths are not like the pearls in a pearl necklace, held together by a string, the “soul,” which passes through all the pearls; rather they are like dice piled one on top of the other. Each die is separate, but it supports the one above it, with which it is functionally connected. Between the dice there is no identity, but conditionality.14 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

195:At the beginning of meditation training thoughts will arrive one on top of another, uninterrupted, like a steep mountain waterfall. Gradually, as you perfect meditation, thoughts become like the water in a deep, narrow gorge, then a great river slowly winding its way down to the sea; finally the mind becomes like a still and placid ocean, ruffled by only the occasional ripple or wave. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

196:Now when the bardo of this life is dawning upon me, I will abandon laziness for which life has no time, Enter, undistracted, the path of listening and hearing, reflection and contemplation, and meditation, Making perceptions and mind the path, and realize the “three kayas”: the enlightened mind;4 Now that I have once attained a human body, There is no time on the path for the mind to wander. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

197:Ask yourself these two questions: Do I remember at every moment that I am dying, and that everyone and everything else is, and so treat all beings at all times with compassion? Has my understanding of death and impermanence become so keen and so urgent that I am devoting every second to the pursuit of enlightenment? If you can answer "yes" to both of these, then you really understand impermanence. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

198:Wrong views and wrong convictions can be the most devastating of all our delusions. Surely both Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot must have been convinced that they were right? And yet each and every one of us has that same dangerous tendency as they had: to form convictions, believe them without question and act on them, so bringing down suffering not only on ourselves, but also on all those around us. On ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

199:Death is a vast mystery, but there are two things we can layabout it: It is absolutely certain that we will die, and it is uncertain when or how we will die. The only surety we have, then, is this uncertainty about the hour of our death, which we seize on as the excuse to postpone facing death directly. We are like children who cover their eyes in a game of hide-and-seek and think that no one can see them. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

200:Death is a vast mystery, but there are two things we can say about it: It is absolutely certain that we will die, and it is uncertain when or how we will die. The only surety we have, then, is this uncertainty about the hour of our death, which we seize on as the excuse to postpone facing death directly. We are like children who cover their eyes in a game of hide and seek and think that no one can see them. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

201:This is the real and urgent reason why we must prepare now to meet death wisely, to transform our karmic future, and to avoid the tragedy of falling into delusion again and again and repeating the painful round of birth and death. This life is the only time and place we can prepare in, and we can only truly prepare through spiritual practice: This is the inescapable message of the natural bardo of this life. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

202:In meditation take care not to impose anything on the mind, or to tax it. When you meditate there should be no effort to control, and no attempt to be peaceful. Don't be overly solemn or feel that you are taking part in some special ritual; let go even of the idea that you are meditating. Let your body remain as it is, your breath as you find it, and remain in your natural condition of unchanging pure awareness. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

203:At the moment of death, there are two things that count: whatever we have done in our lives, and what state of mind we are in at that very moment. Even if we have accumulated a lot of negative karma, if we are able to make a real change of heart at the moment of death, it can decisively influence our future, and transform our karma, for the moment of death is an exceptionally powerful opportunity to purify karma. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

204:Reflita no seguinte: a compreensão da impermanência é paradoxalmente a única coisa a que nos podemos agarrar, talvez a nossa única posse duradoura. Ela é como o céu ou a terra. Independentemente de quanto tudo à nossa volta possa mudar ou desmoronar-se, eles perduram (...) A terra ainda existe; o céu ainda lá está. Obviamente, até mesmo a terra estremece de vez em quando, só para nos lembrar que nada está garantido. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

205:When you have learned, through discipline, to simplify your life, and so practiced the mindfulness of meditation, and through it loosened the hold of aggression, clinging, and negativity on your whole being, the wisdom of insight can slowly dawn. And in the all-revealing clarity of its sunlight, this insight can show you, distinctly and directly, both the subtlest workings of your own mind and the nature of reality. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

206:Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if we´re honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries. Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

207:–Rimpoché, mira qué pulcro y qué limpio lo tienen todo en Occidente. Hasta los lugares donde depositan los cadáveres están inmaculados. En Oriente, ni siquiera las casas donde vive la gente están tan limpias.
–Ah, sí – replicó él–, es verdad; es un país muy civilizado. Tienen casas maravillosas para los cadáveres de los muertos. Pero, ¿no te has fijado? También tienen casas muy bonitas para los cadáveres de los vivos. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

208:Action is being truly observant of your own thoughts, good or bad,
looking into the true nature of whatever thoughts may arise, neither
tracing the past nor inviting the future, neither allowing any
clinging to experiences of joy, nor being overcome by sad situations.
In so doing, you try to reach and remain in the state of great equilibrium, where all good and bad, peace and distress, are
devoid of true identity. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

209:. . . when the nature of mind is introduced by a master, it is just too simple for us to believe. Our ordinary mind tells us this cannot be, there must be something more to it than this. It must surely be more "glorious", with light blazing in space around us, angels with flowing golden hair swooping down to meet us, and a deep Wizard of Oz voice announcing, "Now you have been introduced to the nature of your mind." There is no such drama. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

210:What is a great spiritual practitioner? A person who lives always in the presence of his or her own true self, someone who has found and who uses continually the springs and sources of profound inspiration. As the modern English writer Lewis Thompson wrote: 'Christ, supreme poet, lived truth so passionately that every gesture of his, at once pure Act and perfect Symbol, embodies the transcendent.'
To embody the transcendent is why we are here. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

211:En ausencia de los elementos de apoyo que nos resultan familiares, quedamos cara a cara tan sólo con nosotros mismos: una persona a la que no conocemos, un extraño desconcertante con quien hemos vivido siempre, pero al que, en el fondo, nunca hemos querido tratar. ¿Acaso no es ése el motivo de que tratemos de llenar cada instante de ruido y actividades, por aburridas y triviales que sean, y evitemos quedarnos a solas y en silencio con ese desconocido? ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

212:When your amnesia over your identity begins to be cured, you will realize finally that dak dzin, grasping at self, is the root cause of all your suffering. You will understand at last how much harm it has done both to yourself and to others, and you will realize that both the noblest and the wisest thing to do is to cherish others instead of cherishing yourself. This will bring healing to your heart, healing to your mind, and healing to your spirit. It ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

213:Switch on the television or glance at the newspaper: You will see death everywhere. Yet, did the victims of those plane crashes and car accidents expect to die? They took life for granted, as we do. How often do we hear stories of people whom we know, or even friends, who died unexpectedly? We don't even have to be ill to die: Our bodies can suddenly break down and go out of order, just like our cars. We can be quite well one day, then fall sick and die the next. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

214:Whatever you do, don't shut off your pain. Accept your pain and remain vulnerable. However desperate you become, don't shut off your pain because it is in fact trying to hand you a precious gift -- the chance of discovery through spiritual practice, what lies behind sorrow. And don't we know and only far too well, that protection from pain doesn't work. And when we try and defend ourselves from suffering, we only suffer more and don't learn what we can from experience. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

215:As a Buddhist, I view death as a normal process, a reality that I accept will occur as long as I remain in this earthly existence. Knowing that I cannot escape it, I see no point in worrying about it. I tend to think of death as being like changing your clothes when they are old and worn out, rather than as some final end. Yet death is unpredictable: We do not know when or how it will take place. So it is only sensible to take certain precautions before it actually happens. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

216:There would be no chance at all of getting to know death if it happened only once. But fortunately, life is nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change. 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. These changes, these small deaths, are our living links with death. They are death's pulses, death's heartbeat, prompting us to let go of all the things we cling to. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

217:For most of us, karma and negative emotions obscure the ability to see our own intrinsic nature, and the nature of reality. As a result we clutch on to happiness and suffering as real, and in our unskillful and ignorant actions go on sowing the seeds of our next birth. Our actions keep us bound to the continuous cycle of worldly existence, to the endless round of birth and death. So everything is at risk in how we live now at this very moment: How we live now can cost us our entire future. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

218:The real glory of meditation lies not in any method but in its continual living experience of presence, in its bliss, clarity, peace, and most important of all, complete absence of grasping. The diminishing of grasping in yourself is a sign that you are becoming freer of yourself. And the more you experience this freedom, the clearer the sign that the ego and the hopes and fears that keep it alive are dissolving, and the closer you will come to the infinitely generous "wisdom of egolessness." ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

219:Perhaps the deepest reason we are afraid of death is that we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity; but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our "biography", our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit card ... It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are? ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

220:A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

221:I remember how people would often come to see my master Jamyang Khyentse simply to ask for his guidance for the moment of death. He was so loved and revered throughout Tibet, especially in the eastern province of Kham, that some would travel for months on end to meet him and get his blessing just once before they died. All my masters would give this as their advice, for this is the essence of what is needed as you come to die: "Be free of attachment and aversion. Keep your mind pure. And unite your mind with Buddha." ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

222:What most of us need, almost more than anything, is the courage and humility really to ask for help, from the depths of our hearts: to ask for the compassion of the enlightened beings, to ask for purification and healing, to ask for the power to understand the meaning of our suffering and transform it; at a relative level to ask for the growth in our lives of clarity, peace, and discernment, and to ask for the realization of the absolute nature of mind that comes from merging with the deathless wisdom mind of the master. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

223:have found also, from my own experience, that it is essential not to take anything too personally. When you least expect it, dying people can make you the target of all their anger and blame. As Elisabeth Kübler-Ross says, anger and blame can “be displaced in all directions, and projected onto the environment at times almost at random.”1 Do not imagine that this rage is really aimed at you; realizing what fear and grief it springs from will stop you from reacting to it in ways that might damage your relationship. Sometimes ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

224:Modern civilization is largely devoted to the pursuit of the cult of delusion. There is no general information about the nature of mind. It is hardly ever written about by writers or intellectuals; modern philosophers do not speak of it directly; the majority of scientists deny it could possibly be there at all. It plays no part in popular culture: no one sings about it, no one talks about it in plays, and it's not on TV. We are actually educated into believing that nothing is real beyond what we can perceive with our ordinary senses. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

225:If all we know of mind is the aspect of mind that dissolves when we die, we will be left with no idea of what continues, no knowledge of the new dimension of the deeper reality of the nature of mind. So it is vital for us all to familiarize ourselves with the nature of mind while we are still alive. Only then will we be prepared for the time when it reveals itself spontaneously and powerfully at the moment of death; be able to recognize it "as naturally," the teachings say, "as a child running into its mother's lap"; and by remaining in that state, finally be liberated. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

226:Devotion {to the spiritual master} becomes the purest, quickest, and simplest way to realize the nature of our 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; the devotion we arouse 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 becomes inseparable, and inspire one another. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

227:When we are at last freed from the body that has defined and dominated our understanding of ourselves for so long, the karmic vision of one life is completely exhausted, but any karma that might be created in the future has not yet begun to crystallize. So what happens in death is that there is a “gap” or space that is fertile with vast possibility; it is a moment of tremendous, pregnant power where the only thing that matters, or could matter, is how exactly our mind is. Stripped of a physical body, mind stands naked, revealed startlingly for what it has always been: the architect of our reality. So ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

228:Patrul Rinpoche tells the story of an old frog who had lived all his life in a dank well. One day a frog from the sea paid him a visit. “Where do you come from?” asked the frog in the well. “From the great ocean,” he replied. “How big is your ocean?” “It’s gigantic.” “You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?” “Bigger.” “Bigger? You mean half as big?” “No, even bigger.” “Is it . . . as big as this well?” “There’s no comparison.” “That’s impossible! I’ve got to see this for myself.” They set off together. When the frog from the well saw the ocean, it was such a shock that his head just exploded into pieces. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

229:Self-grasping creates self-cherishing, which in turn creates an ingrained aversion to harm and suffering. However, harm and suffering have no objective existence, what gives them their existence and their power is only our aversion to them. When you understand this, you understand then that it is our aversion, in fact, that attracts to us every negativity and obstacle that can possibly happen to us, and fills our lives with nervous anxiety, expectation, and fear. Wear down that aversion by wearing down the self-grasping mind and its attachment to a nonexistent self, and you will wear down any hold on you that any obstacle or negativity can have. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

230:When they went into solitude, followed a spiritual practice, and truly faced themselves and the fact of death, they were healed. What is this telling us? That when we accept death, transform our attitude toward life, and discover the fundamental connection between life and death, a dramatic possibility for healing can occur. Tibetan Buddhists believe that illnesses like cancer can be a warning, to remind us that we have been neglecting deep aspects of our being, such as our spiritual needs.4 If we take this warning seriously and change fundamentally the direction of our lives, there is a very real hope for healing not only our body, but our whole being. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

231:Patrul Rinpoche tells the story of an old frog who had lived all his life in a dank well. One day a frog from the sea paid him a visit. "Where do you come from?" asked the frog in the well. "From the great ocean," he replied. "How big is your ocean?" "It's gigantic." "You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?" "Bigger." "Bigger? You mean half as big?" "No, even bigger." "Is it . . . as big as this well?" "There's no comparison." "That's impossible! I've got to see this for myself." They set off together. When the frog from the well saw the ocean, it was such a shock that his head just exploded into pieces. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,

232:Just as the ocean has waves or the sun has rays, so the
mind's own radiance is its thoughts and emotions. The ocean
has waves, yet the ocean is not particularly disturbed by them.
The waves are the very nature of the ocean. Waves will rise, but
where do they go? Back into the ocean. And where do the
waves come from? The ocean. In the same manner, thoughts
and emotions are the radiance and expression of the very nature
of the mind. They rise from the mind, but where do they dissolve?
Back into the mind. Whatever arises, do not see it as a
particular problem. If you do not impulsively react, if you are
only patient, it will once again settle into its essential nature. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

233:Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. Think of your ordinary emotional, thought-ridden self as a block of ice or a slab of butter left out in the sun. If you are feeling hard and cold, let this aggression melt away in the sunlight of your meditation. Let peace work on you and enable you to gather your scattered mind into the mindfulness of Calm Abiding, and awaken in you the awareness and insight of Clear Seeing. And you will find all your negativity disarmed, your aggression dissolved, and your confusion evaporating slowly like mist into the vast and stainless sky of your absolute nature. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

234:Taking impermanence truly to heart is to be slowly freed
from the idea of grasping, from our flawed and destructive
view of permanence, from the false passion for security on
which we have built everything. Slowly it dawns on us that
all the heartache we have been through from grasping at the
ungraspable was, in the deepest sense, unnecessary. At the
beginning this too may be painful to accept, because it seems
so unfamiliar. But as we reflect, and go on reflecting, our
hearts and minds go through a gradual transformation. Letting
go begins to feel more natural, and becomes easier and easier.
It may take a long time for the extent of our foolishness to
sink in, but the more we reflect, the more we develop the
view of letting go; it is then that a shift takes place in our way
of looking at everything. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

235:Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity — but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our "biography," our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards… It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are?

Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn't that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own? ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

236:Don’t let us take doubts with exaggerated seriousness nor let them grow out of proportion, or become black-and-white or fanatical about them. What we need to learn is how slowly to change our culturally conditioned and passionate involvement with doubt into a free, humorous, and compassionate one. This means giving doubts time, and giving ourselves time to find answers to our questions that are not merely intellectual or “philosophical,” but living and real and genuine and workable. Doubts cannot resolve themselves immediately; but if we are patient a space can be created within us, in which doubts can be carefully and objectively examined, unraveled, dissolved, and healed. What we lack, especially in this culture, is the right undistracted and richly spacious environment of the mind, which can only be created through sustained meditation practice, and in which insights can be given the change slowly to mature and ripen. 129-130 ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

237:Wherever I go in the West, I am struck by the great mental suffering that arises from the fear of dying, whether or not this fear is acknowledged. How reassuring it would be for people if they knew that when they lay dying they would be cared for with loving insight! As it is, our culture is so heartless in its expediency and its denial of any real spiritual value that people, when faced with terminal illness, feel terrified that they are simply going to be thrown away like useless goods. In Tibet it was a natural response to pray for the dying and to give them spiritual care; in the West the only spiritual attention that the majority pay to the dying is to go to their funeral. At the moment of their greatest vulnerability, then, people in our world are abandoned and left almost totally without support or insight. This is a tragic and humiliating state of affairs, which must change. All of the modern world’s pretensions to power and success will ring hollow until everyone can die in this culture with some measure of true peace, and until at least some effort is made to ensure this is possible. BY ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

238:Recommended Reading
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
DH Lawrence - The Rainbow
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera
Karl Ove Knausgaard - My Struggle
Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse
Ben Lerner - The Topeka School
Sally Rooney - Conversations With Friends
Nell Zink - The Wallcreeper
Elena Ferrante - The Days of Abandonment
Jack Kerouac - Dharma Bums
Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass
Michael Murphy - Golf in the Kingdom
Barbara Kingsolver - Prodigal Summer
Albertine Sarrazin - Astragal
Rebecca Solnit - The Faraway Nearby
Michael Paterniti - Love and Other Ways of Dying
Rainer Maria Rilke - Book of Hours
James Baldwin - Another Country
Roberto Calasso - Ka
Translation by S. Radhakrishan - Principle Upanisads
Chogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
Translation by Georg Feuerstein - Yoga Sutra
Richard Freeman - The Mirror of Yoga
Translation by S. Radhakrishan - The Bhagavad Gita
Shrunyu Suzuki - Zen Mind Beginner's Mind
Heinrich Zimmer - Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization
Sogyal Rinpoche - The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Joseph Campbell - Myths of Light
Joseph Campbell - The Hero With A Thousand Faces
Sri Aurobindo - Savitri
Thomas Meyers - Anatomy Trains
Wendy Doniger - The Hindus ~ Jason Bowman, http://www.jasonbowmanyoga.com/recommended-reading,

239:Let's try an experiment. Pick up a coin. Imagine that it represents
the object at which you are grasping. Hold it tightly
clutched in your fist and extend your arm, with the palm of
your hand facing the ground. Now if you let go or relax your
grip, you will lose what you are clinging onto. That's why
you hold on.
But there's another possibility: You can let go and yet keep
REFLECTION AND CHANGE 35
hold of it. With your arm still outstretched, turn your hand
over so that it faces the sky. Release your hand and the coin
still rests on your open palm. You let go. And the coin is still
yours, even with all this space around it.
So there is a way in which we can accept impermanence
and still relish life, at one and the same time, without grasping.
Let us now think of what frequently happens in relationships.
So often it is only when people suddenly feel they are
losing their partner that they realize that they love them. Then
they cling on even tighter. But the more they grasp, the more
the other person escapes them, and the more fragile their relationship
becomes.
So often we want happiness, but the very way we pursue
it is so clumsy and unskillful that it brings only more sorrow.
Usually we assume we must grasp in order to have that something
that will ensure our happiness. We ask ourselves: How
can we possibly enjoy anything if we cannot own it? How
often attachment is mistaken for love! Even when the relationship
is a good one, love is spoiled by attachment, with its
insecurity, possessiveness, and pride; and then when love is
gone, all you have left to show for it are the "souvenirs" of
love, the scars of attachment. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

240:The essence of meditation practice in Dzogchen is encapsulated by these four points:
▪ When one past thought has ceased and a future thought has not yet risen, in that gap, in between, isn’t there a consciousness of the present moment; fresh, virgin, unaltered by even a hair’s breadth of a concept, a luminous, naked awareness?
Well, that is what Rigpa is!
▪ Yet it doesn’t stay in that state forever, because another thought suddenly arises, doesn’t it?
This is the self-radiance of that Rigpa.
▪ However, if you do not recognize this thought for what it really is, the very instant it arises, then it will turn into just another ordinary thought, as before. This is called the “chain of delusion,” and is the root of samsara.
▪ If you are able to recognize the true nature of the thought as soon as it arises, and leave it alone without any follow-up, then whatever thoughts arise all automatically dissolve back into the vast expanse of Rigpa and are liberated.
Clearly this takes a lifetime of practice to understand and realize the full richness and majesty of these four profound yet simple points, and here I can only give you a taste of the vastness of what is meditation in Dzogchen.
…
Dzogchen meditation is subtly powerful in dealing with the arisings of the mind, and has a unique perspective on them. All the risings are seen in their true nature, not as separate from Rigpa, and not as antagonistic to it, but actually as none other–and this is very important–than its “self-radiance,” the manifestation of its very energy.
Say you find yourself in a deep state of stillness; often it does not last very long and a thought or a movement always arises, like a wave in the ocean. Don’t reject the movement or particulary embrace the stillness, but continue the flow of your pure presence. The pervasive, peaceful state of your meditation is the Rigpa itself, and all risings are none other than this Rigpa’s self-radiance. This is the heart and the basis of Dzogchen practice. One way to imagine this is as if you were riding on the sun’s rays back to the sun: ….
Of couse there are rough as well as gentle waves in the ocean; strong emotions come, like anger, desire, jealousy. The real practitioner recognizes them not as a disturbance or obstacle, but as a great opportunity. The fact that you react to arisings such as these with habitual tendencies of attachment and aversion is a sign not only that you are distracted, but also that you do not have the recognition and have lost the ground of Rigpa. To react to emotions in this way empowers them and binds us even tighter in the chains of delusion. The great secret of Dzogchen is to see right through them as soon as they arise, to what they really are: the vivid and electric manifestation of the energy of Rigpa itself. As you gradually learn to do this, even the most turbulent emotions fail to seize hold of you and dissolve, as wild waves rise and rear and sink back into the calm of the ocean.
The practitioner discovers–and this is a revolutionary insight, whose subtlety and power cannot be overestimated–that not only do violent emotions not necessarily sweep you away and drag you back into the whirlpools of your own neuroses, they can actually be used to deepen, embolden, invigorate, and strengthen the Rigpa. The tempestuous energy becomes raw food of the awakened energy of Rigpa. The stronger and more flaming the emotion, the more Rigpa is strengthened. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

241:The essence of meditation practice in Dzogchen is encapsulated by these four points:
▪ When one past thought has ceased and a future thought has not yet risen, in that gap, in between, isn’t there a consciousness of the present moment; fresh, virgin, unaltered by even a hair’s breadth of a concept, a luminous, naked awareness?
Well, that is what Rigpa is!
▪ Yet it doesn’t stay in that state forever, because another thought suddenly arises, doesn’t it?
This is the self-radiance of that Rigpa.
▪ However, if you do not recognize this thought for what it really is, the very instant it arises, then it will turn into just another ordinary thought, as before. This is called the “chain of delusion,” and is the root of samsara.
▪ If you are able to recognize the true nature of the thought as soon as it arises, and leave it alone without any follow-up, then whatever thoughts arise all automatically dissolve back into the vast expanse of Rigpa and are liberated.
Clearly this takes a lifetime of practice to understand and realize the full richness and majesty of these four profound yet simple points, and here I can only give you a taste of the vastness of what is meditation in Dzogchen.
…
Dzogchen meditation is subtly powerful in dealing with the arisings of the mind, and has a unique perspective on them. All the risings are seen in their true nature, not as separate from Rigpa, and not as antagonistic to it, but actually as none other–and this is very important–than its “self-radiance,” the manifestation of its very energy.
Say you find yourself in a deep state of stillness; often it does not last very long and a thought or a movement always arises, like a wave in the ocean. Don’t reject the movement or particulary embrace the stillness, but continue the flow of your pure presence. The pervasive, peaceful state of your meditation is the Rigpa itself, and all risings are none other than this Rigpa’s self-radiance. This is the heart and the basis of Dzogchen practice. One way to imagine this is as if you were riding on the sun’s rays back to the sun: ….
Of couse there are rough as well as gentle waves in the ocean; strong emotions come, like anger, desire, jealousy. The real practitioner recognizes them not as a disturbance or obstacle, but as a great opportunity. The fact that you react to arisings such as these with habitual tendencies of attachment and aversion is a sign not only that you are distracted, but also that you do not have the recognition and have lost the ground of Rigpa. To react to emotions in this way empowers them and binds us even tighter in the chains of delusion. The great secret of Dzogchen is to see right through them as soon as they arise, to what they really are: the vivid and electric manifestation of the energy of Rigpa itself. As you gradually learn to do this, even the most turbulent emotions fail to seize hold of you and dissolve, as wild waves rise and rear and sink back into the calm of the ocean.
The practitioner discovers–and this is a revolutionary insight, whose subtlety and power cannot be overestimated–that not only do violent emotions not necessarily sweep you away and drag you back into the whirlpools of your own neuroses, they can actually be used to deepen, embolden, invigorate, and strengthen the Rigpa. The tempestuous energy becomes raw food of the awakened energy of Rigpa. The stronger and more flaming the emotion, the more Rigpa is strengthened. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,

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