This dying forces you to look into yourself. And in this, compassion is the only way. Love is the only way.
SOGYAL RINPOCHEThich Nhat Hanh writes with the voice of the Buddha.
More Sogyal Rinpoche Quotes
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There would be no chance to get to know death at all …if it happened only once.
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Learning to live is learning to let go.
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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.
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How we live now can cost us our entire future.
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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.
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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.
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We are actually educated into believing that nothing is real beyond what we can perceive with our ordinary senses.
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Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.
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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?
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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.
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Tomorrow or the next life – which comes first, we never know.
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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?
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Living with the immediacy of death helps you sort out your priorities in life. It helps you to live a less trivial life.
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And when you talk about realization, accomplishment for that matter enlightenment is that when you realize the fundamental essence of your mind.
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And to think that all this springs from a civilization that claims to adore life, but actually starves it of any real meaning; that endlessly speaks of making people “happy”, but in fact blocks their way to the source of real joy.
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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
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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.
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Let your heart go out in spontaneous and immeasurable compassion.
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Perhaps the deepest reason we are afraid of death is that we do not know who we are.
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Thich Nhat Hanh writes with the voice of the Buddha.
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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.
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What the world needs more than anything are Bodhisattvas of peace, lawyers, politicians, teachers working tirelessly for the enlightenment of themselves and others.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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There is no armor like perseverance.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE