Sunday, July 31, 2011

Let the Flower of Compassion Bloom

.
Let the flower of compassion bloom
In the soil of kindness.
Tend it with the pure water of equanimity
In the cool shade of joy.

~ Longchenpa, Kindly Bent to Ease Us

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The Spirit of Awakening

.
Bodhi means to be awake, or to be awakening. Chitta is heart, mind, spirit, and intention. So bodhichitta is the aspiration, the intention, and the experience of waking up, knowing how things actually are, in order to bring about the deep and genuine benefit of oneself and others. This bodhichitta, or spirit of awakening, includes two inherent, indestructible abilities that we all possess: the ability to know the nature of what is arising in our experience, and the ability to to respond in ways that bring benefit to oneself and others.

These abilities are more than possessions; this is our very nature -- our buddha nature -- which cannot be lost and cannot be destroyed. It can only be temporarily covered over by the emotional turmoil and reactions that arise from the confusion of not knowing how things really are. When we can abide in the turmoil, and clear up the confusion, we are buddha: awake and responsive to experience, situations, and other beings.

Don't underestimate the power of confusion and turmoil to create suffering. And don't underestimate your very nature: responsive awareness.
.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Insight Suffused with Calm

.
Knowing that the mind's afflictions are overcome
Through penetrating insight suffused with stable calm,
You should first seek the peace of calm abiding,
Which is found in joy and non-attachment for the world.

~ Shantideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva, 8:4
(translated by Adam Pearcey)

Friday, July 22, 2011

Deep Path, Nothing There

.
To make a deep mental path, we think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
~ Henry David Thoreau
.
‎It is only your lack of awareness and your grasping that make thoughts seem to have some kind of reality. If thoughts had any inherent existence in the absolute nature of mind, they should at least have a form, or be located somewhere. But there is nothing.
~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
.

May All Beings Be Happy

May all beings 
be content 
peaceful 
safe
healthy 
happy 
at ease in their body
at home in the world

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Recipe

Take equal parts kindness, compassion, and awareness. 
Mix thoroughly until body~heart~mind are completely suffused. 
Offer to everyone you meet. 

Friday, July 8, 2011

One Sole Purpose


There are many different kinds of creation-phase and completion-phase meditations -- hundreds of gods and goddesses, and all kinds of things to meditate on. Creation phase is more connected with relative truth, completion phase with absolute truth. But in any case, it doesn't matter which one and which kind one is doing; all of those methods and practices are for one sole purpose: to reverse clinging to the 'reality' or 'truth' of these confused appearances. That's the purpose of all those practices. If those practices aren't in fact reversing that kind of clinging, which is arising due to the notion of their true existence, then we have attachment (or desire) to those appearances that seem pleasant and we have aversion (or hatred) to those that seem unpleasant. If that kind of ordinary outlook -- seeing everything as solid, actually existing and responding to reality in terms of either attachment or aversion -- is not reversed, if there is no realization of that as being like a dream, and if grasping is as strong as ever, then all that meditation is meaningless. All those practices are of no benefit.

~ Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, 1995, Creation & Completion, Boulder, Colorado, p. 12. Translated by Sarah Harding

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Smaller, Simpler, Kinder

.
Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.

~ Albert Einstein
.