And if you have the understanding that comes from spiritual practice, then falling is in no way a disaster, but the discovery of an inner refuge.
SOGYAL RINPOCHEOur bodies can suddenly break down and go out of order, just like our cars. We can be quite well one day, then fall sick and die the next.
More Sogyal Rinpoche Quotes
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The purpose of meditation is to awaken in us the sky-like nature of mind, and to introduce us to that which we really are, our unchanging pure awareness, which underlies the whole of life and death
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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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. . . when the nature of mind is introduced by a master, it is just too simple for us to believe.
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The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this life.
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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.
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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.
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What should we “do” with the mind in meditation? Nothing. Just leave it, simply, as it is.
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Even though the meditator may leave the meditation, the meditation will not leave the meditator.
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We start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.
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Theories are like patches on a coat, one day they just wear off.
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This life is the only time and place we can prepare in, and we can only truly prepare through spiritual practice: This is the inescapable message of the natural bardo of this life.
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When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us.
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For most of us, karma and negative emotions obscure the ability to see our own intrinsic nature, and the nature of reality.
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Devotion {to the spiritual master} becomes the purest, quickest, and simplest way to realize the nature of our mind and all things.
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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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Let your heart go out in spontaneous and immeasurable compassion.
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At a relative level to ask for the growth in our lives of clarity, peace, and discernment, and to ask for the realization of the absolute nature of mind that comes from merging with the deathless wisdom mind of the master.
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Our lives are lived in intense and anxious struggle, in a swirl of speed and aggression, in competing, grasping, possessing and achieving, forever burdening ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations.
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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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At the beginning of meditation training thoughts will arrive one on top of another, uninterrupted, like a steep mountain waterfall. Gradually.
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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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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.
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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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When I came to the West, I realized there was much hunger for spiritual teachings, but no environment for spirituality.
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At the moment of death, there are two things that count: whatever we have done in our lives, and what state of mind we are in at that very moment.
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Tomorrow or the next life – which comes first, we never know.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE