Perception about Death

Now, due to people's perception about death, some become frustrated with this impermanence topic. They confront death with a frightened and terrified attitude. But it is senseless to be so paranoid and so attached to the physical body.

--H.E. Gyaltsab Rinpoche

Compassion

Real compassion is without attachment. Pay attention to this point, which goes against our habitual ways of thinking. It's not this or that particular case that stirs our pity. We don't give our compassion to such and such a person by choice. We give it spontaneously, entirely, without hoping for anything in exchange.

-- HH the XIV Dalai Lama, Violence and Compassion

The Essence of Practice

The essence of practice, wherever you do it,is developing yourself and your way of life-to really develop your happiness,your inner understanding, to deepen your wisdom and selflessness.

The essence of retreat isto make yourself more pure and content,self-realized,content just by being yourself,being alone,and thinking about the true nature of things.

If you don't understand life,than you become disappointed,depressed. You feel useless.

--HH XII Gyalwang Drukpa

Gently Whispered

Dharma For Sat, 8/20/05

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 andof itself...It is just that the mind is expressing itself in a different way than it was a moment ago.

H.E. Kalu Rinpoche, Gently Whispered

Naropa

Because Naropa was born a prince, was educated, and became a professor at NalandaUniversity, he regarded himself as . . . an educated, sensible person, someone highly respected.But this sensible quality, this sanity of his, turned out to be a very clumsy way of relating with the teachings of Tilopa - the teachings of the Kagyu lineage. Because he was not enough of a freak, because he was not insane enough, he couldn't relate with them at all. Insanity in this case is giving up logical arguments, giving up concept. Things as they are conceptualized are not things as they are.

--Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Struggle Does Not Work

STRUGGLE DOES NOT WORK-Chogyam Trungpa-
We know that our technology cannot shield us from war, crime, illness, economic insecurity, laborious work, old age, and death; nor can our ideologies shield us from doubt, uncertainty, confusion, and disorientation; nor can our therapies protect us from the dissolution of the high states of consciousness that we may temporarily achieve and the disillusionment and anguish that follow. But what else are we to do?...In order to see for ourselves how this process works, we must examine our own experience. "But how," we might ask, "are we to conduct the examination? What method or tool are we to use?" The method that the Buddha discovered is meditation. He discovered that struggling to find answers did not work. It was only when there were gaps in his struggle that insights came to him. He began to realize that there was a sane, awake quality within him which manifested itself only in the absence of struggle. So the practice of meditation involves letting be.
FROM "The Greatest Hoax of All," in SHAMBHALA SUN magazine, September 2005, page 61.

IX Karmapa

When the mind rests without any alteration, gross thoughts cease; bliss, clarity, and non-conceptuality develop; and the mind settles one-pointedly....These experiences of one-pointedness are like seeing the moon's first sliver, on it's first eve of waxing.

--His Holiness The IX Karmapa, The Ocean of Definitive Meaning

Buddha Shakyamuni

It is not the case that one would live eternally by holding the view that the world is eternal. Nor is it the case that one would live the spiritual life by holding the view that the world is not eternal. Whether one holds that the world is eternal, or whether one holds that the world is not eternal, there is still:
birth, ageing, death, grief, despair, pain, and unhappiness.

--Buddha Shakyamuni

Machig Labdron

Simply relax in the natural state of being; why try to tie knots in the sky?

First tighten loosely,then loosen loosely---hold onto nothing.

Let it go as it goes, and rest at ease as you are.