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As you perfect meditation, thoughts become like the water in a deep, narrow gorge, then a great river slowly winding its way down to the sea; finally the mind becomes like a still and placid ocean, ruffled by only the occasional ripple or wave.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Don’t you notice that there are particular moments when you are naturally inspired to introspection? Work with them gently, for these are the moments when you can go through a powerful experience, and your whole worldview can change quickly.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Inspired Moments Powerful
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
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
Even though the meditator may leave the meditation, the meditation will not leave the meditator.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Leave May Meditation
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
Our 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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Break Die Down Next Sick Suddenly
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 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
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
So often we want happiness, but the very way we pursue it is so clumsy and unskillful that it brings only more sorrow.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Go Inspiring Letting Order
Perhaps the deepest reason we are afraid of death is that we do not know who we are.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Believe Jobs Spiritual
There is no general information about the nature of mind. It is hardly ever written about by writers or intellectuals; modern philosophers do not speak of it directly.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

General Information Intellectual Philospher Speech
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
…we and all sentient beings fundamentally have the buddha nature as our innermost essence. . . .
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Awareness Essence Nature
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
Why, if we are as pragmatic as we claim, don’t we begin to ask ourselves seriously: Where does our real future lie?
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Buddhism Lying Real
Real devotion is an unbroken receptivity to the truth
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Devotion Real Unbroken
At the beginning of meditation training thoughts will arrive one on top of another, uninterrupted, like a steep mountain waterfall. Gradually.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Ocean Rivers Sea
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
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
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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Disheartened Dynamics Lawa Trusting
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
Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death?
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Death Mirror Thinking
Saints and mystics throughout history have adorned their realisations with different names and given them different faces and interpretations, but what they are all fundamentally experiencing is the essential nature of the mind.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Different Faces Mind Names
Tomorrow or the next life – which comes first, we never know.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Firsts Next Tomorrow
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
Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Buddhist Spiritual Yoga

As you perfect meditation, thoughts become like the water in a deep, narrow gorge, then a great river slowly winding its way down to the sea; finally the mind becomes like a still and placid ocean, ruffled by only the occasional ripple or wave.

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As you perfect meditation, thoughts become like the water in a deep, narrow gorge, then a great river slowly winding its way down to the sea; finally the mind becomes like a still and placid ocean, ruffled by only the occasional ripple or wave.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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