Quotes from Sogyal Rinpoche

Now that the bardo of dying dawns upon me, I will abandon all grasping, yearning, and attachment, Enter undistracted into clear awareness of the teaching, And eject my consciousness into the space of unborn Rigpa; As I leave this compound body of flesh and blood I will know it to be a transitory illusion.

The past is the past, the future not yet risen, and even the present thought, as we experience it, becomes the past. The only thing we really have is nowness, is now.

Modern industrial society is a fanatical religion. We are demolishing, poisoning, destroying all life-systems on the planet. We are signing IOUs our children will not be able to pay . . . We are acting as if we were the last generation on the planet. Without a radical change in heart, in mind, in vision, the earth will end up like Venus, charred and dead.

Both despair and euphoria about death are an evasion. Death is neither depressing nor exciting; it is simply a fact of life.

the six realms of samsara: hell, hungry ghost, animal, human, demigod, and god realms, respectively.

will die, What has been gathered will be dispersed, What has been accumulated will be exhausted, What has been built up will collapse, And what has been high will be brought low.

Time and time again, I have seen people whose hearts have been hardened by self-hatred and guilt find, through a simple act of asking for pardon, unsuspected strength and peace.

human realm, where you will experience the suffering of birth, old age, sickness, and death

The absolute truth cannot be realized within the domain of the ordinary mind, and the path beyond the ordinary mind is through the heart.

Through your blessing, grace, and guidance, through the power of the light that streams from you: May all my negative karma, destructive emotions, obscurations, and blockages be purified and removed, May I know myself forgiven for all the harm I may have thought and done, May I accomplish this profound practice of phowa, and die a good and peaceful death, And through the triumph of my death, may I be able to benefit all other beings, living or dead.

Have you so integrated it with your every thought, breath, and movement that your life has been transformed? Ask yourself these two questions: Do I remember at every moment that I am dying, and everyone and everything else is, and so treat all beings at all times with compassion?

Pour commencer à luy oster son plus grand avantage contre nous, prenons voye toute contraire à la commune. Ostons luy l'estrangeté, pratiquons-la, accoustumons-la, n'ayant rien si souvent en la teste que la mort…

If my dying relative or friend is a practicing Christian and I am a Buddhist, is there any conflict?" How could there be? I tell them: You are invoking the truth, and Christ and Buddha are both compassionate manifestations of truth, appearing in different ways to help beings.

The word "bardo" is commonly used to denote the intermediate state between death and rebirth, but in reality bardos are occurring continuously throughout both life and death, and are junctures when the possibility of liberation, or enlightenment, is heightened.

Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life itself reveals again and again the opposite: that letting go is the path to real freedom.

One central question here is whether there is any true separation between life and death, or whether it all unfolds in, and is somehow shaped by, our intimacy with and within the gap.

from the Tibetan Buddhist point of view, we can divide our entire existence into four continuously interlinked realities: (1) life, (2) dying and death, (3) after death, and (4) rebirth. These are known as the four bardos: (1) the natural bardo of this life, (2) the painful bardo of dying, (3) the luminous bardo of dharmata, and (4) the karmic bardo of becoming.

Tibet's famous poet saint, Milarepa, said: "My religion is to live—and die—without regret.

The "inner science" of Buddhism is based, as one American scholar puts it, "on a thorough and comprehensive knowledge of reality, on an already assessed, depth understanding of self and environment; that is to say, on the complete enlightenment of the Buddha.

For what happens at the moment of death is that the ordinary mind and its delusions die, and in that gap the boundless sky-like nature of our mind is uncovered. This essential nature of mind is the background to the whole of life and death, like the sky, which folds the whole universe in its embrace.

Death is a natural part of life, which we will all surely have to face sooner or later. To my mind, there are two ways we can deal with it while we are alive. We can either choose to ignore it or we can confront the prospect of our own death and, by thinking clearly about it, try to minimize the suffering that it can bring.

La naissance d'un homme est la naissance de sa douleur. Plus il vit longtemps et plus il devient stupide, parce que son angoisse d'éviter une mort inévitable s'intensifie sans relâche. Quelle amertume ! Il vit pour ce qui est toujours hors de portée ! Sa soif de survie dans le futur le rend incapable de vivre dans le présent.

The "task" for which the "king" has sent us into this strange, dark country is to realize and embody our true being.

No one anywhere was angry, ill, or sad; no one did evil, none was proud; the world became quite quiet, as though it had reached full perfection.