Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent… But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it…You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief… But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely.You know what pain is. You know what love is. “All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.” ~Mitch Albom

Wherever You Are: We can always see the stars twinkling in the sky. In the same way, wherever you will be in the world, you can be a lamp brightening the space around you. In the evenings after dusk, I often go out on my terrace and look at the stars. When I do so and then close my eyes, I make the prayer now that I will be able to see each of you with my mind’s eye, twinkling brightly wherever you are. ~ 17th Karmapa

Most people who would like to give up eating meat but have been unable to do so say the reason is because of the flavor and because of habit. Many people say they just like how meat tastes. What keeps them eating meat is craving the taste on their tongues. This is the power that emotions have in the face of our intellect. Because they are enslaved to their emotional craving for meat, many people do not want to give up meat even when they know that it is the right thing to do. Apart from that desire for the flavor, most people have no real reason to keep eating meat. ~ 17th Karmapa

Normally the way that we relate to patience is that sometimes we can be patient and at other times we feel we cannot. The type of patience we need to cultivate is persistent patience, which means that we are patient when we can be patient and we are patient when we feel we cannot be patient. If we lack this, then we will have no way to overcome our kleshas because patience is the opposite of and the remedy to both anger and hatred. ~ 17th Karmapa

There is no way to be a good person without making any efforts, doing nothing. But if we bring to bear the sort of confidence and sincere determination that says, “I don’t care what happens; no matter what, I will be a good person in the world; it is not alright for everyone in the world to be deceitful, with bad intentions and behaving badly, so I myself will be a good person,” in that case, I think at that point we can become good people without difficulty. I think it can basically come about without hardship. ~ 17th Karmapa

Red Tail Landing. Photo credit: Randy Neufeldt