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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.

Sogyal Rinpoche

What should we “do” with the mind in meditation? Nothing. Just leave it, simply, as it is.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Meditation Mind Spiritual
The key to finding a happy balance in modern lives is simplicity.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Balance Keys Simplicity
For me, all dying people are teachers, giving to all those who help them a chance to transform themselves through developing their compassion.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Compassion People Teacher Themselves
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
Tomorrow or the next life – which comes first, we never know.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Firsts Next Tomorrow
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 other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to – you have uncovered in yourself your own wise guide.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Attendedm Rarely Other Uncovered
Let your heart go out in spontaneous and immeasurable compassion.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Compassion Heart Spontaneous
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
Our problems, all come from nothing; they are all based on a misunderstanding that does not even exist.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Misunderstanding Our Problem
All 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.”
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Attachment Buddha Essence Master Mind Needed
Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Buddhist Spiritual Yoga
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
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
Spiritual warriors can still be frightened, but even so they are courageous enough to taste suffering, to relate clearly to their fundamental fear, and to draw out without evasion the lessons from difficulties.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Difficulties Fundamental The Lesson
And when you talk about realization, accomplishment for that matter enlightenment is that when you realize the fundamental essence of your mind.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Accomplishment Essence Mind

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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