We are participatory beings who inhabit a participatory reality, seeking relationships that enhance our sense of what it means to be alive. In terms of dharma practice, a true friend is more than just someone with whom we share common values and who accepts us for what we are. Such a friend is someone with...

I was perplexed by the failure of teachers at school to address what seemed the most urgent matter of all: the bewildering, stomach-churning insecurity of being alive. The standard subjects of history, geography, mathematics, and English seemed perversely designed to ignore the questions that really mattered. As soon as I had some inkling of what...

The Four Noble Truths are pragmatic rather than dogmatic. They suggest a course of action to be followed rather than a set of dogmas to be believed. The four truths are prescriptions for behavior rather than descriptions of reality. The Buddha compares himself to a doctor who offers a course of therapeutic treatment to heal...

As we live out of such a mind, we become generous, with no sense of tolerance. We become patient, with no sense of putting up with anything. We become compassionate, with no sense of separation. And we become wise, with no sense of having to straighten anyone out.

Life is a series of awakenings.

Chöd is conventionally and misleadingly seen as analogous to, if not derived from, shamanic initiatory dismemberment visions, as well as dualistic anti-body ascetic practices. Two of the elements most commonly referenced by authors in their “identification” of Chöd and/as shamanism—the dismemberment/sacrifice of the body and “demonology”—are presented in an oversimplistic fashion. In the first instance,...

Two ideas are psychologically deep-rooted in man: self-protection and self-preservation. For self-protection man has created God, on whom he depends for his own protection, safety and security, just as a child depends on its parent. For self-preservation man has conceived the idea of an immortal Soul or Atman, which will live eternally. In his ignorance,...

There is no unmoving mover behind the movement. It is only movement. It is not correct to say that life is moving, but life is movement itself. Life and movement are not two different things. In other words, there is no thinker behind the thought. Thought itself is the thinker. If you remove the thought,...

Through recognizing and realizing the empty essence, instead of being selfish and self-centered, one feels very open and free

Whenever ego suffers from fear of death & your practice turns to seeing impermanence, ego settles down.

Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its backgroundand role within new Western religiosity,” University of Stockholm, Malin Fitger 2004

It is the nature of the Kali Yuga that most human beings are now held back from spiritual liberation due to the gravity of inertia, apathy and laziness, (known in Sankrit as the quality of tapas) that overwhelms this age. Despite this seemingly gloomy prognosis, there is a way out of this predicament for those...

Just calling one’s practice “approach and accomplishment” and staying in retreat for years will produce nothing but hardship. Completing hundreds of millions of mantras will not even bring the warmth of the ordinary qualities that mark one’s progress on the path! In other words, if the essential points of the path are not taken into...

If you are fortunate enough to enjoy great success, you should never forget the spirit of the beginner, and not grow indolent and arrogant.

Since living is believing, no one can be completely lacking in faith.

If you’re constantly ruminating about what you just did- or what you should have done- or what you would have done if you only had the chance, you will miss your life. Ok, you will fail to connect with it. You will fail to connect with other people.

In those moments when we realize how much we cannot control, we can learn to let go.

To reteach a thing its loveliness is the nature of metta. Through lovingkindness, everyone & everything can flower again from within.

Through meditation we come to know that we are dying & being reborn in every moment.

While happiness is an end in itself, it is also the state of mind we can have right now.

Mindfulness is the agent of our freedom. Through mindfulness we arrive at faith we grow in wisdom & we attain equanimity.

To sense which gifts to accept & which to leave behind is our path to discovering freedom.

Forgiveness that is insincere, forced or premature can be more psychologically damaging than authentic bitterness & rage.

We use mindfulness to observe the way we cling to pleasant experiences & push away unpleasant ones.

We don’t need any sort of religious orientation to lead a life that is ethical, compassionate & kind.

With attachment all that seems to exist is just me & that object I desire.

With the practice of meditation we can develop this ability to more fully love ourselves and to more consistently love others.

Meditation may be done in silence & stillness, by using voice & sound, or by engaging the body in movement. All forms emphasize the training of attention.

Meditation is a cyclical process that defies analysis, but demands acceptance.

People turn to meditation because they want to make good decisions, break bad habits & bounce back better from disappointments.

When we practice metta, we open continuously to the truth of our actual experience, changing our relationship to life.

Like water poured from one vessel to another, metta flows freely, taking the shape of each situation without changing its essence.

Perspective is as simple as answering this question: If I had 5 months to live would I experience this problem differently?

If you’re stressing over happiness, you’re doing it wrong!

The source to low self-esteem is the lack of control you feel you have in your life. If you spend your life competing with others, trying to make right the wrongs done to you, or waste your time trying to look right, you will never achieve contentment and emotional balance. People you encounter in life...

… the four noble truths: that there is suffering, that it has an origin, that there is a cessation of suffering, and that there is a path to that cessation.

Buddhism helps people to overcome pain. The deepest pain that Chinese people feel now is the pain of separation from loved ones, one of the eight pains in Buddhism.

Last year, Yoshino,I walked away bending branchesTo point me to blossoms–Which now are everywhere and I canGo where I’ve never been before.

Tightly held by rocksThrough winter, the ice todayBegins to come undone:A way-seeker also is the water,Melting, murmuring from the moss.

A maggot is just another life form.

When you die, you want to die a beautiful death. But what makes for a beautiful death is not always clear. To die without suffering, to die without causing trouble to others, to die leaving behind a beautiful corpse, to die looking good — it’s not clear what is meant by a beautiful death. Does...

We who are like senseless children shrink from suffering, but love its causes. We hurt ourselves; our pain is self-inflicted! Why should others be the object of our anger?

For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannon build a sound basis of compassion. So in order to practice compassion, you should have an enemy.When you face your enemy who is going to hurt you,...

We live our lives based on the assumption that we directly perceive, and are accurately interpreting, objects with a fair amount of accuracy. Since we naturally assume that we are apprehending objects of cognition as best as possible, it does not occur to us that we are purposely twisting the object before our eyes to...

Love where there is no reason to love

A smile is the most beautiful colour in the world.

First, we must see that our negative actions arise due to prejudice and erroneous judgments. The discrimination that labels some as ‘friends’ and others as ‘enemies’ must be perceived as the root of our problems. We need to see that we label people and things in terms of our own desires, our own wishes. These...

If we lack the proper antidotes of emptiness and bodhichitta, we will not be able to control our minds when frightening appearances manifest. It is considered a sign of progress in this practice if we go unconscious, and then, when we wake up, have forgotten our names and whose bodies we have! This is the...

When we are meditating in a haunted graveyard, or even in our rooms, frightening external and internal appearances may arise during Chöd practice. If this happens, check the two ‘superstitions’—the external, frightening appearance, and the internal appearance of the inherently existent ‘I’ that is frightened. Do they exist from their own sides? With determination, check...

…there is found a third level of religious experience, even if it is seldom found in a pure form. I will call it the cosmic religious sense. This is hard to make clear to those who do not experience it, since it does not involve an anthropomorphic idea of God; the individual feels the vanity...