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Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death?

Sogyal Rinpoche

Devotion {to the spiritual master} becomes the purest, quickest, and simplest way to realize the nature of our mind and all things.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Life Nature Spiritual
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

Difficulties Fundamental The Lesson
At the beginning of meditation training thoughts will arrive one on top of another, uninterrupted, like a steep mountain waterfall. Gradually.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Ocean Rivers Sea
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

Control Home Leaving Scattered
How we live now can cost us our entire future.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Cost Entire Future Live Now
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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Death Dying Forever
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

Buddhism Issues Real
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

Character Important Mindstream
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

Attachment Buddha Essence Master Mind Needed
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

Answer Both Impermanence Pursuit Urgent
The key to finding a happy balance in modern lives is simplicity.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Balance Keys Simplicity
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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Death Mother Running
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

Fire Water Wisdom
This dying forces you to look into yourself. And in this, compassion is the only way. Love is the only way.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Compassion Dying Love
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

Death Even Karma Purify
What will happen to us then if we have no clue of any deeper reality?
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Any Clue Happen Reality

Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death?

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Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death?

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