Quotes About Existence

The veil of the hindrances to knowledge has three aspects in terms of progressively subtler concepts. The first is holding on to true existence (Tib. bden par 'dzin pa), the second is holding on to characteristics (Tib. mtshan mar 'dzin pa), and the third is the appearance of duality (Tib. gnyis snang).

This clear and luminous nature of mind is as changeless as space. It is not afflicted by desire and so on, the adventitious stains, which are sprung from incorrect thoughts. It is not brought into existence by the water of karma, of the poisons, and so on. Hence it is also not consumed by the cruel fires of dying, falling sick, and aging.

Once one realizes that beings do not truly exist and yet feels compassion for them, this is the most excellent type of compassion.

Emptiness endowed with all supreme aspects" (Tib. rnam kun mchog ldan stong pa nyid) is a name for the true nature of mind, or the way the mind truly exists, which is the inseparable union of emptiness and clear light.

The [dharmakaya] is purity, since its nature is pure and [even] the remaining imprints are fully removed. It is true self, since all conceptual elaboration in terms of self and non-self is totally stilled. It is true happiness, since [even] the aggregates of mental nature and their causes are reversed. It is permanence, since the cycle of existence and the state beyond pain are realized as one.

The conceptual elaboration consisting of the belief in the existence of a self as it is imputed by the tirthikas and so on, and the conceptual elaboration consisting of the belief in the non-existence of a self as it is imputed by the shravakas and so on, have been totally stilled and pacified without any remainder. Thus it is the perfection of true self.

Samsara and nirvana, the cycle of existence and the state beyond torment and pain, have been realized as being equal in that they are not two different things that should be rejected and adopted, respectively. Thus the two benefits are uninterrupted and the dharmakaya constitutes the perfection of permanence.

those of little merit would not even have doubts about this doctrine of emptiness. even suspicion that objects are empty wrecks the seeds of cyclic existence.

those who are born only to die and whose nature is to be driven, appear to be in the act of dying and not in the act of living.

All form, therefore, is like a dream, And who will be attached to it, who thus investigates? The body, in this way, has no existence; What, therefore, is male and what is female?

My wealth of merit gathered in, With reverence but without conceptual target, When shall I reveal this truth of emptiness To those who go to ruin through belief in real existence?

Through a Buddha, who is but illusion, how does merit spring?" As if the Buddha were existing truly. "But," you ask, "if beings are like illusions, How, when dying, can they take rebirth?

As long as the conditions are assembled, Illusions, likewise, will persist and manifest.

En el samsara hay innumerables trampas que nos conducen al sufrimiento. En lugar de encontrar el camino de la vacuidad, que nos conduce a la libertad, seguimos atrapados por su opuesto, el aferramiento a la existencia verdadera. Si mientras permanecemos en el samsara no encontramos el camino de la vacuidad

Time passes, and we "measure out our lives in coffee spoons.

Perhaps the choice was neither right nor wrong. It only existed.

The oceans and the skies…and the sun coming up each new day. That's all there is, I think. That's all that matters to think on.

The FBI cannot find any evidence that i was born. On my FBI wanted poster, they list my birth date as July 16, 1947, and, in parentheses, 'not-substantiated by birth records.' Anyway, i was born.

Life is unbearable, but death is not so pleasant either.

There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.

Suddenly I see the comedy of little men, myself included, who are pitted against a riddle that is as vast and indifferent as the blue sky above us. (pg. 170)

It's a struggle but that's why we exist, so that another generation of Lesbians of color will not have to invent themselves, or their history, all over again.

Art is not living. It is the use of living.

I'm living under water. Everything seems slow and far away. I know there's a world up there, a sunlit quick world where time runs like dry sand through an hourglass, but down here, where I am, air and sound and time and feeling are thick and dense.