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Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.

Sogyal Rinpoche

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
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
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
So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Control Home Leaving Scattered
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
Thich Nhat Hanh writes with the voice of the Buddha.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Buddha Voice Writing
When I came to the West, I realized there was much hunger for spiritual teachings, but no environment for spirituality.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Spiritual Teaching West
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.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Believe Buddhist Home
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
Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death?
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Death Mirror Thinking
Learning to live is learning to let go.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Go Learn Learning Letting
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
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
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
Tomorrow or the next life – which comes first, we never know.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE

Firsts Next Tomorrow
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

Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.

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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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