When I came to the West, I realized there was much hunger for spiritual teachings, but no environment for spirituality.
SOGYAL RINPOCHEAnd when you talk about realization, accomplishment for that matter enlightenment is that when you realize the fundamental essence of your mind.
More Sogyal Rinpoche Quotes
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The whole of our life is a teaching of how to uncover that strong goodness, and a training toward realizing it.
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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.
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Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity.
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Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.
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As we progress in it, the process reveals itself as wonderfully interdependent: We, from our side, try continually to generate devotion.
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How important it is to be skillful and gentle with ourselves, without becoming disheartened or giving up, but trusting the spiritual path and knowing that it has its own laws and its own dynamics.
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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.
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Western laziness consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues.
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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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Real devotion is an unbroken receptivity to the truth. Real devotion is rooted in an awed and reverent gratitude, but one that is lucid, grounded, and intelligent.
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Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.
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The future is very much in our hands–in our actions.
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Samsara is the mind turned outwardly, lost in its projections. Nirvana is the mind turned inwardly, recognizing its true nature.
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For it is only through meditation that you can undertake the journey to discover your true nature, and so find the stability and confidence you will need to live, and die, well; Meditation is the road to enlightenment.
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What the world needs more than anything are Bodhisattvas of peace, lawyers, politicians, teachers working tirelessly for the enlightenment of themselves and others.
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When no such thing occurs, they feel extremely disappointed. But the real miracle of meditation is more ordinary and much more useful. . . .
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When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us.
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Theories are like patches on a coat, one day they just wear off.
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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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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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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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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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The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this life.
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Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if we´re honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries.
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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.
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What should we “do” with the mind in meditation? Nothing. Just leave it, simply, as it is.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE