Just because we go through a difficult situation, it doesn’t mean that the future is predetermined. The future is very much in our hands, in our actions.
SOGYAL RINPOCHEAll 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.”
More Sogyal Rinpoche Quotes
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Let the sky outside awake a sky inside your mind.
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Thich Nhat Hanh writes with the voice of the Buddha.
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And in the all-revealing clarity of its sunlight, this insight can show you, distinctly and directly, both the subtlest workings of your own mind and the nature of reality.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE -
All too often people come to meditation in the hope of extraordinary results, like visions, lights, or some supernatural miracle.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE -
True spirituality is to be aware that if we are interdependent with everything and everyone else, even our smallest, least significant thought, word and action have real consequences throughout the universe.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE -
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
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 -
In the Buddhist approach, life and death are seen as one whole, where death is the beginning of another chapter of life.
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There would be no chance at all of getting to know death if it happened only once. But fortunately, life is nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change.
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What will happen to us then if we have no clue of any deeper reality?
SOGYAL RINPOCHE -
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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE -
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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE -
As you perfect meditation, thoughts become like the water in a deep, narrow gorge, then a great river slowly winding its way down to the sea; finally the mind becomes like a still and placid ocean, ruffled by only the occasional ripple or wave.
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. . . when the nature of mind is introduced by a master, it is just too simple for us to believe.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE -
Again and again we need to appreciate the subtle workings of the teachings and the practice, and even when there is no extraordinary, dramatic change, to persevere with calm and patience.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE