Category Archives: Spirituality
Paths
Many paths lead from The foot of the mountain, But at the peak We all gaze at the Single bright moon. ~Ikkyū (1394-1481)
Little or a Lot
Excerpted from What Makes You Not a Buddhist, ©2008, by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche: One day a monk noticed a tear in Gautama Buddha’s robe and offered to stitch it, but Buddha refused his offer. He kept walking and begging alms in his torn robe. When he headed toward the hideout of a destitute woman, the …
Lighten Things Up
“If we’re not too confused or hard on ourselves, we will discover the sanity beyond habitual reactions. Identifying less with habits and more with our basic nature lightens things up. With more space in our mind, we take our reactions less seriously. We can watch them the way we would watch children at play– knowing …
Consequences
This was excerpted from The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick, ©2010. He was writing about the difficulty in finding accurate historical depictions when taken years after an event, but he could just as easily have been writing a treatise on karma: “We interact with one another as individuals responding to a complex haze of factors: …
Look!
“Look. This is your world! You can’t not look. There is no other world. This is your world; it is your feast. You inherited this; you inherited these eyeballs; you inherited this world of color. Look at the greatness of the whole thing. Look! Don’t hesitate– look! Open your eyes. Don’t blink, and look, look– …
So Much Easier
“Meditation is so much easier than most people think: Whatever you experience, as long as you are aware of what’s going on, is meditation!” ~Mingyur Rinpoche
What would be the need?
Where would I possibly find enough leather With which to cover the surface of the earth? But (just) leather on the soles of my shoes Is equivalent to covering the earth with it. Likewise it is not possible for me To restrain the external course of things But should I restrain this mind of mine …
The Chattering of Birds
“I am like a tree in a forest. Birds come to the tree, they sit on its branches and eat its fruits. To the birds, the fruit may be sweet or sour or whatever. The birds say sweet or they say sour, but from the tree’s point of view, this is just the chattering of …
Shhhh…
Excerpted from the book Natural Great Perfection: Dzogchen Teachings And Vajra Songs by Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, ©2009: Even in this world, and even now, there are said to be many hidden yogis or discreet yogis, called bepay naljor in Tibetan. It means those realized ones who are not generally recognized as great spiritual sages or …
Vantage Point
“What happens when you begin to recognize your experiences as your own projections? What happens when you begin to lose your fear of the people around you and conditions you used to dread? Well, from one point of view: nothing. From another point of view: everything.” ~Mingyur Rinpoche
Dismantle
Excerpted from The Heart Is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out by Ogyen Trinley Dorje, ©2013. It’s the last paragraph that really stands out: In 2001, the huge Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan were intentionally demolished. From a certain perspective within Islam, these statues were offensive instruments of idol worship, while to Buddhists …
“But now we have a choice…”
“As we begin to develop awareness of the mind, the mind itself appears to divide into two. A new aspect of the mind arises. This is referred to variously as the witness, the seer, the knower, or the observer. It witnesses without judgment and without comment. Along with the arrival of the witness, a space …
