Quotes from Sogyal Rinpoche

The successive existences in a series of rebirths are not like the pearls in a pearl necklace, held together by a string, the "soul," which passes through all the pearls; rather they are like dice piled one on top of the other. Each die is separate, but it supports the one above it, with which it is functionally connected. Between the dice there is no identity, but conditionality.14

to realize the nature of mind is to realize the nature of all things.

It means a person, any person, who has completely awakened from ignorance and opened to his or her vast potential of wisdom. A buddha is one who has brought a final end to suffering and frustration, and discovered a lasting and deathless happiness and peace.

En ausencia de los elementos de apoyo que nos resultan familiares, quedamos cara a cara tan sólo con nosotros mismos: una persona a la que no conocemos, un extraño desconcertante con quien hemos vivido siempre, pero al que, en el fondo, nunca hemos querido tratar. ¿Acaso no es ése el motivo de que tratemos de llenar cada instante de ruido y actividades, por aburridas y triviales que sean, y evitemos quedarnos a solas y en silencio con ese desconocido?

Aprender a vivir es aprender a desprenderse.

If everything dies and changes, then what is really true?

the buddha nature, the seed of enlightenment

The nature of mind is the nature of everything." I wonder if this threefold process the bardos reveal is true not only, as we discovered, of all the different levels of consciousness and of all the different experiences of consciousness, both in life and death, but also perhaps of the actual nature of the universe itself

with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity.

If this elephant of mind is bound on all sides by the cord of mindfulness, All fear disappears and complete happiness comes. All enemies: all the tigers, lions, elephants, bears, serpents [of our emotions];2 And all the keepers of hell; the demons and the horrors, All of these are bound by the mastery of your mind, And by the taming of that one mind, all are subdued, Because from the mind are derived all fears and immeasurable sorrows.

discipline is to do what is appropriate or just; that is, in an excessively complicated age, to simplify our lives.

William Blake: He who binds to himself a Joy, Does the winged life destroy; He who kisses the Joy as it flies, Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home.

To discover that the most important thing is human relationships and love and not materialistic things.

Good in the Beginning springs from the awareness that we and all sentient beings fundamentally have the buddha nature as our innermost essence, and that to realize it is to be free of ignorance and to put an end, finally, to suffering.

the only truly serious goals in life are "learning to love other people and acquiring knowledge.

the original ground: the primordial purity of natural simplicity.

Whatever we have done with our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything, counts.

By the power and the truth of this practice: May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the causes of happiness; May they be free from suffering and the causes of suffering; May they never be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering, And may they dwell in the great equanimity that is free from attachment and aversion.

Mind itself is Padmasambhava; there is no practice or meditation apart from that.

Good in the Middle is the frame of mind with which we enter into the heart of the practice, one inspired by the realization of the nature of mind, from which arises an attitude of nongrasping, free of any conceptual reference whatsoever, and an awareness that all things are inherently "empty," illusory, and dreamlike.

The Buddha said: This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.

In our minds changes always equal loss and suffering.

Good at the End is the way in which we bring our meditation to a close by dedicating all its merit, and praying with real fervor: