Friday, March 31, 2006

If you love the sacred and dislike the worldly...

If you love the sacred and dislike the worldly, you will go on floating and sinking in the ocean of birth and death. The passions arise depending on the heart. If the heart is stilled, where then do you seize the passions? Do not tire yourself by making up discriminations; and quite naturally you will find the way. --from Rinzai Roku, translated by Irmgard Schlogl

Thursday, March 30, 2006

We have to be genuine, which means not having aggression and being true to oneself. In that way, we can build an enlightened society. Enlightened society cannot be built and cannot develop on the level of dreams or concepts. Enlightened society has to be real and good, honest and genuine.
Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche

All sentient beings including ourselves

All sentient beings, including ourselves, already possess the primary cause for enlightenment.

– Gampopa, The Jewel Ornament of Liberation

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Regradless of the emotion being expressed

Regardless of the emotion being experienced -- be it desire, anger, pride, jealousy, envy, greed, or whatever -- what is really going on is a shift in attention. The mind is expressing itself in a different way. Nothing implicitly requires one to presume that this emotion has any reality in and of itself...It is just that the mind is expressing itself in a different way than it was a moment ago.

--Kalu Rinpoche, Gently Whispered

Thursday, March 23, 2006

When you feel completely desolate

When you feel completely desolate, you begin to help yourself, you make yourself at home. You begin to realize all kinds of beauties around you.

--Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Illusion's Game

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

When we get a sense of the nonexistence of the self

When we get a sense of the nonexistence of the self, we might feel afraid. However, there is no need for fear. If the self were to exist, we could be harmed, but since the self does not exist, there is no "I" to be harmed. With the realization that the self does not exist comes great courage, and fear simply disappears.

--THE TRADITION AND PRACTICE OF VIPASHYANA -- by Venerable Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, Bodhi Magazine, Vol. 7, No. 4

Ego

Ego is pain, and pain is ego.

--Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Illusion's Game

The Root of Delusion

The root of delusion is one’s own mind grasping external appearances as being truly existent.

-- Jamgon Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye, The Essential Points of Creation and Completion

Thursday, March 09, 2006

No trace of substance remains in us unchanged

No trace of substance remains in us unchanged. we live in the midst of a uninterrupted current of relations which condition our existence at every instant. We have no possibility of speaking of our self, our being. The Buddhists can't follow Descartes in his famous "ergo." Nothing naturally follows from thought to being, since both are elements of the same changing stream. Instead of affirming, "I think therefore I am," we could say, at most, "I think, therefore I think," or else, as Nietzsche says, 'Something is thinking."

--HH the XIV Dalai Lama, Violence and Compassion

Friday, March 03, 2006

"buddha" literally means awake

“Bodhi,” which related to “buddha,” literally means “awake.” “Chitta” is a Sanskrit word meaning “heart,” or occasionally, “essence.” So “bodhichitta” is the essence of the buddha, the essence of the awakened ones.

-- Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, The Heart of The Buddha

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Compassion is open space

Compassion is open space in which things can be accommodated. It contrasts strongly with our repulsing situations because we are not willing to accommodate anything. So compassion is creating open space, accepting things happening. --Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Orderly Chaos