black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Sogyal Rinpoche

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

Compassion Heart Spontaneous
Theories are like patches on a coat, one day they just wear off.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Coats Day One Patches
Tomorrow or the next life – which comes first, we never know.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Firsts Next Tomorrow
There is no armor like perseverance.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Armor Create Perseverance
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
This is the real and urgent reason why we must prepare now to meet death wisely, to transform our karmic future, and to avoid the tragedy of falling into delusion again and again and repeating the painful round of birth and death.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Death Real Repeating Spiritual Tragedy Wisely
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
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
Every time I hear the rush of a mountain stream, or the waves crashing on the shore, or my own heartbeat,
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Heartbeat Mountain Shore Stream
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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Death Dying Go Letting
The whole of meditation practice can be essentialized into these 3 crucial points: Bring your mind home. Release. And relax!
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Home Meditation Practice
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
What more wonderful and consoling gift could you give to dying people than the knowledge that they are being prayed for, and that you are taking on their suffering and purifying their negative karma through your practice for them?
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Being Consulting Karma Knowledge Negative
The only surety we have, then, is this uncertainty about the hour of our death, which we seize on as the excuse to postpone facing death directly. We are like children who cover their eyes in a game of hide and seek and think that no one can see them.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Cover Death Eyes Jhour Postpone Uncertain
Our problems, all come from nothing; they are all based on a misunderstanding that does not even exist.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Misunderstanding Our Problem
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
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
The act of meditation is being spacious.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Act Meditation Spacious
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
As we progress in it, the process reveals itself as wonderfully interdependent: We, from our side, try continually to generate devotion.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Continually Devotion Generate Interdependent Process Progress
The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this life.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Giving Journey Meditation
Living with the immediacy of death helps you sort out your priorities in life. It helps you to live a less trivial life.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Climbing Helping Life Prioritise
Samsara is the mind turned outwardly, lost in its projections. Nirvana is the mind turned inwardly, recognizing its true nature.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Buddhist Lost Mind
Perhaps the deepest reason we are afraid of death is that we do not know who we are.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Believe Jobs Spiritual
The whole of our life is a teaching of how to uncover that strong goodness, and a training toward realizing it.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Goodness Life Teaching Uncover Whole World
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

Nature Reality Show Subtlest Sunlight Working
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 RINPOCHE

Disaster Inner Practice Refuge Spiritual Understanding

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Sogyal Rinpoche Quotes