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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.

Sogyal Rinpoche

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
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

Confirm Longer Understanding Unshakable
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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Happy Joy Meaning Source Strives
Theories are like patches on a coat, one day they just wear off.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Coats Day One Patches
At every moment in our lives we need compassion, but what more urgent moment could there be than when we are dying?
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Compassion Death Karma
We are actually educated into believing that nothing is real beyond what we can perceive with our ordinary senses.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Believing Beyond Ordinary Senses
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

Boring Civilization Moment Stranger
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

Inspired Moments Powerful
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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Believe Buddhist Home
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
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

Confusion Nature Spiritual
Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death?
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Death Mirror Thinking
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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Lying Peace Real
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
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
Let your heart go out in spontaneous and immeasurable compassion.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Compassion Heart Spontaneous

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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