The tantric pledges, like a dented vessel, are restored by the
practitioner's strength.
--Jamgon Kongtrul
-
+~
When is it possible to restore a vow that has been transgressed? All the
tantras and transmissions state that if a monk has incurred a defeat with
concealment, the transgressed vow, like a broken clay pot, cannot be repaired.
-- Tulku Thondup, from "The Heart of Unconditional Love: A Powerful New
Approach to Loving-Kindness Meditation", published by Shambhala
Publications
+~
+Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics,
+its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who
+glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about
+the Holocaust.
+ -- Mike Godwin, on "Godwin's Law", originated in 1990, which (paraphrasing)
+ states that any online discussion will eventually devolve into a
+ comparison with Hitler or Nazism. At that point, the person who brought
+ either topic up has lost the argument and their basic credibility.
+~
+Your mind, the primordial buddha,
+Searches elsewhere due to the power of desire.
+Doesn’t it notice that it is wandering in samsara?
+
+Now that you have obtained the precious human body,
+You continuously get carried away by mundane actions.
+Don’t you notice that your life is running out?
+ -- Padmasambhava
+~
+ The key to understanding the truth of suffering is what the Buddha called
+the “three marks” of everything that exists. All conditioned phenomena,
+he said, are pervaded by these three marks: impermanence (anitya),
+dissatisfaction or suffering (duhkha), and insubstantiality (anatman,
+“without self”).
+ According to the Buddha, if we do not understand how conditioned phenomena
+are marked by these three aspects, then we will not be able to understand the
+first Noble Truth. We may do all we can in order to avoid facing the fact
+that everything is contingent and transient—we may try to hide ourselves
+from it, and we may even spin out all kinds of metaphysical theories of an
+unchanging, permanent, substantial reality to avoid this all-pervasive nature
+of ephemerality. Also, if we do not understand that conditioned phenomena are
+unsatisfactory, we will not think about restraining ourselves from
+overindulgence in sensory gratifications, which makes us lose our center and
+become immersed in worldly concerns, so that our life is governed by greed,
+craving, and attachment. All of these things disturb the mind.
+ If we do not understand that everything is insubstantial—anatman—then
+we may believe that there is some kind of enduring essence or substance in
+things, or in the personality, and because of this belief we generate delusion
+and confusion in the mind.
+ -- Traleg Kyabgon, from "The Essence of Buddhism", published by Shambhala
+ Publications
+~
+ When we grasp a self, how can we possibly practice self-reflection?
+Everything becomes personal: our pain, our anger, our shortcomings. When we
+take thoughts and emotions personally, they torture us. Looking at our
+thoughts and emotions in this way is like rubbing our nose in something
+unpleasant—what purpose does it serve other than to create more pain? This
+is not the kind of looking we are speaking of here.
+ With the view of selflessness, we can enjoy whatever arises in our
+awareness. We can accept that everything that arises is a result of our past
+actions, or karma, but it is not who we are.
+ -- Dzigar Kongtrul, from "It’s Up to You", published by Shambhala
+ Publications
+~
+As with attaining any goal, you can’t go about putting an end to suffering
+and arriving at enlightenment just any old way. If we throw a stone up into
+the air, we should not be surprised if it falls on our head. In the same way,
+when we commit any act, whatever it may be, we can only expect that sooner or
+later it will produce an effect. Thus it is logical that if we want to free
+ourselves from suffering, we have to perform certain actions and refrain from
+certain others. The law of the causality of actions is the very foundation of
+the teaching of the Buddha, who proclaimed:
+
+ Avoid the least harmful act,
+ Perfectly accomplish the good,
+ And master your mind.
+ That is the teaching of the Buddha.
+
+ -- Tenzin Wangmo, from "The Prince and the Zombie: Tibetan Tales of Karma",
+ with foreword by Matthieu Ricard, published by Shambhala Publications
+~
+I am very pleased to be a human being, yet I know that I can make what I have
+been given even better. I know I am not perfect, yet I also know I have the
+ability to transform my imperfections. Remembering this when I begin to
+practice or study makes any effort needed during the session much more freely
+available. Resting meditation is not just sitting on a cushion and zoning
+out. Contemplative Meditation is not just thinking about whatever arises in
+the mind. Practicing either form of meditation takes joyful exertion and
+self-discipline.
+ -- Khenpo Gawang, "Your Mind is Your Teacher", published by Shambhala
+ Publications
+~
+Not acting on our habitual patterns is only the first step toward not harming
+others or ourselves. The transformative process begins at a deeper level when
+we contact the rawness we’re left with whenever we refrain. As a way of
+working with our aggressive tendencies, Dzigar Kongtrül teaches the
+nonviolent practice of simmering. He says that rather than “boil in our
+aggression like a piece of meat cooking in a soup,” we simmer in it. We
+allow ourselves to wait, to sit patiently with the urge to act or speak in our
+usual ways and feel the full force of that urge without turning away or giving
+in. This is the journey of developing a kindhearted and courageous tolerance
+for our pain.
+ -- Pema Chödrön, "Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change",
+ published by Shambhala Publications
+~
+During lifetimes spent wandering in the round of rebirth without beginning or
+end, your present enemies were once extremely beneficial friends and your
+present friends were once harmful enemies. Moreover, if you do not consider
+present enemies as such, but treat them helpfully as friends, it is possible
+that they will prove even more helpful than friends. Therefore, rest in
+equanimity toward others: give up attachment to friends and reject hatred
+toward enemies.
+ -- Choying Tobden Dorje, from "The Complete Nyingma Tradition from Sutra to
+ Tantra, Books 1 to 10", published by Shambhala Publications
+~
+Compassion is not logical. It’s basically spacious and generous. A
+compassionate person might not be sure whether he is being compassionate to
+you or whether you are being compassionate to him, because compassion creates
+a total environment of generosity. Generosity is implied; it just happens,
+rather than you making it happen. It’s just there, without direction,
+without me, without “for them.” It’s full of joy, a spontaneously
+existing grin of joy, constant joy.
+ -- Chögyam Trungpa, from "Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with
+ Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness", published by
+ Shambhala Publications
+~
+We have a Buddhist prayer in which we ourselves aspire to become like [the
+earth]. We say:
+
+ May I be like the earth,
+ Providing the air, the ground, water,
+ And everything she provides
+ That is our sacred source of life.
+
+Inspired by the example of the earth, this prayer encourages us to aspire to
+be an unconditional source of all well-being and life for others. This is a
+supreme aspiration. We do not just have a great deal to learn about the
+environment—we also have a lot to learn from it.
+ -- H.H. the Seventeenth Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, "The Heart Is Noble",
+ published by Shambhala Publications
+~
+Many people wish to be healthy, to be free from disease, and to remain forever
+young, but these are not very meaningful goals. If you can tame your mind,
+the value of this will far surpass anything in the world. Patrul Rinpoche
+said, "Tame the mind, tame the mind, use bodhichitta to tame the mind. Even
+if we do not cultivate any good deeds in body and speech, taming our mind in
+fact benefits ourselves and all beings."
+ -- Jigme Phuntsok, from "Always Present", published by Shambhala Publications
+~
+Transcendent knowledge is beyond thought, word, or description. It neither
+arises nor ceases, like the identity of space. It is the domain of
+individual, self-knowing wakefulness. I salute this mother of the buddhas of
+the three times.
+ -- Shantarakshita, in praise of Prajnaparamita, from "Jewels of
+ Enlightenment", by Erik Pema Kunsang, published by Shambhala Publications
+~
+To rejoice in others’ happiness without any preferences of our own shows
+that we understand that the longing for happiness is the same for all beings.
+We can rejoice in their temporal happiness, which has come from their
+accumulation of merit. When we recognize the quality of happiness in
+others—when we see someone genuinely smile or laugh or see a glimmer of
+brightness in their eyes—we can rejoice. When they obtain something they
+want or need, whatever it may be, we have an opportunity to practice
+rejoicing. Beings long for all kinds of things, some of which we might not
+want ourselves—but that doesn’t matter. The important thing is that, if
+only for a single moment, it has brought them some happiness.
+ -- Dzigar Kongtrul, from "Light Comes Through", published by Shambhala
+ Publications
+~
+Even if we think we have found the origin of phenomena, we are only being
+deluded by the karmic seeds of new discoveries which are constantly ripening,
+becoming exhausted, and being replaced through the ripening of other karmic
+seeds. Yet we continue to be fascinated by trying to define substance,
+constantly trying to catch it, thinking that we have caught it but then losing
+it. We are endlessly lured by the material creations of our conceptions.
+Sublime beings, knowing the characteristics of each phenomenon and the nature
+of all phenomena, are never lured by anything. They abide in the infinite
+display of enlightenment’s empty appearance without trying to catch anything
+or being able to be caught.
+ -- Thinley Norbu, from "White Sail", published by Shambhala Publications
+~
+When there is never any fear or despair no matter what adversity or suffering
+is encountered, when difficulty is taken as an aid to mind training and you
+always have the help of a joyful mind, then you have acquired proficiency in
+mind training. When adverse conditions come, meditate joyfully and, in
+addition, learn to take joyfully all the adversity others experience.
+ -- Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye, from "The Great Path of Awakening", published
+ by Shambhala Publications
+~
+The origin of all science is in the desire to know causes; and the origin of
+all false science and imposture is in the desire to accept false causes rather
+than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge
+our own ignorance.
+ -- William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
+~
+Not only are there two different categories of phenomena, the person and the
+external phenomena, there are also two different types of misconceptions with
+respect to the nature of phenomena: misconceptions with respect to the nature
+of the person and with respect to the external phenomena. This means to
+overcome these two types of misconception is to realize selflessness, which is
+the ultimate nature of these two types of phenomena. Therefore there are two
+selflessnesses, selflessness of person and selflessness of phenomena.
+Generally speaking, comparing the two, the realization of the selflessness of
+the person is said to be easier than realization of the selflessness of
+phenomena because of long familiarity with the actual self, the person.
+ -- H.H. the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, "Gentle Bridges: Conversations with the
+ Dalai Lama on the Sciences of Mind", edited by Jeremy Hayward and
+ Francisco J. Varela, published by Shambhala Publications
+~
+The Tibetan term for renunciation is ngepar jungwa; nges par ’byung ba,
+which literally means "certainty of release." Ngepar is short for ngepar
+shepa, meaning to have certain, decisive knowledge from within; in this case,
+it refers to having certainty that the nature of worldly existence is
+suffering. In addition to this certainty, there is the heartfelt wish to be
+released, jungwa, from this suffering. One must gain confidence in the fact
+that the nature of cyclic existence in samsara is suffering, together with
+having the powerful wish and intention to be free of this suffering. This is
+what is known as the thought of renunciation.
+ -- Nyoshul Khenpo, "The Fearless Lion’s Roar: Profound Instructions on
+ Dzogchen, the Great Perfection", published by Shambhala Publications
+~
+“Karma” basically means action. When we talk about karma, we talk about
+action, which in Buddhism entails thinking in terms of cause and effect.
+Actions are performed because there are certain preexisting causes and
+conditions giving rise to the impulse to engage in particular actions, and
+from this the karmic effect issues. In the performance of actions, there is
+usually a propelling factor. We feel compelled by something to do certain
+things, and when we engage in those actions, based on those impulses, the
+actions then produce relevant effects. As we have seen though, this does not
+mean that every action performed has a particular cause and a particular
+effect. Nevertheless, the Buddhist theory of karma is irrevocably tied to
+this mechanism, for want of a better word, and hence to the responsibility of
+the individual, as opposed to a divine governance of sorts.
+ -- Traleg Kyabgon, "Karma: What It Is, What It Isn't, Why It Matters",
+ published by Shambhala Publications
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