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…we and all sentient beings fundamentally have the buddha nature as our innermost essence. . . .

Sogyal Rinpoche

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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Death Karma Powerful
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
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
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
We know, in Milarepa’s words: “This thing called ‘corpse’ we dread so much is living with us here and now.”
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Dread Know Meditation Words
Once an old woman came to Buddha and asked him how to meditate. He told her to remain aware of every movement of her hands as she drew the water from the well, knowing that if she did, she would soon find herself in that state of alert and spacious calm that is meditation.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Hands Knowing Water
There is no armor like perseverance.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Armor Create Perseverance
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?
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Death Desire Living Truly Trying
For most of us, karma and negative emotions obscure the ability to see our own intrinsic nature, and the nature of reality.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Death Karma Real
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
It is important to remember always that the principle of egolessness does not mean that there was an ego in the first place, and the Buddhists did away with it. On the contrary, it means there was never any ego at all to begin with. To realize that is called “egolessness.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Buddhist Ego Egolessness Important Mean
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

Attachment Learning Life
Quoting Dudjom Rinpoche on the buddha-nature: No words can describe it No example can point to it Samsara does not make it worse Nirvana does not make it better It has never been born It has never ceased.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Country Describe Example Fall
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
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
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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Compassion Fragility Preciousness

…we and all sentient beings fundamentally have the buddha nature as our innermost essence. . . .

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…we and all sentient beings fundamentally have the buddha nature as our innermost essence. . . .

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