Spirituality-Buddhism

Kindness, tolerance, impatience, wrath are all your own perception

Comment January 28, 2021

When you see something you like, you perceive it as desirable and good. Likewise, if you see somebody you don’t like, then the perception is negative. Kindness, tolerance, impatience, wrath are all your own perception. If you feel kindness instead of wrath, you have a different perception. If you are more tolerant than impatient, you have a different perception. If you know life is impermanent, you see things differently. When your annoying friend is suddenly diagnosed with terminal cancer, your perception changes. If we learn to accept, even in a limited way, that everything is subject to our perception, then pure perception of the guru is more achievable. Coupled with pure perception, guru devotion has nothing to do with being a sycophant. It’s really about exercising your own perception. ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Deepest reasons to love yourself

2 January 28, 2021

The deepest reasons to love yourself have nothing to do with anything outside you — not with your body or with others’ expectations of you. If you ground yourself in your own goodness, nothing will be able to damage your self-esteem. Take delight in your inner nature, in your virtues, and in all your beautiful qualities. ~ 17th Karmapa
Being diligent

Comment January 27, 2021

We think we’re being diligent by sitting down to meditate for hours at a stretch. But real diligence doesn’t mean forcing yourself beyond your natural limits; it means simply trying to do your best, rather then focusing on the result of what you’re trying to accomplish. It means finding a comfortable middle ground between being too relaxed and too wound up. ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Thoughts are just displays of the mind

4 January 26, 2021

Thoughts are just displays of the mind. They may be waves stirring up the all-ground consciousness, but this is not a fault. If you just rest loosely in them, they will disappear right there. This is why when we meditate we should let the thoughts that occur in the sixth mental consciousness relax into the all-ground consciousness. ~Thrangu Rinpoche
When everything is smooth sailing, who needs patience?

Comment January 25, 2021

Patience is not learned in safety. It is not learned when everything is harmonious and going well. When everything is smooth sailing, who needs patience? If you stay in your room with the door locked and the curtains drawn, everything may seem harmonious, but the minute anything doesn’t go your way, you blow up. There is no cultivation of patience when your pattern is to just try to seek harmony and smooth everything out. ~ Pema Chödron
It is important not to confuse any culture or tradition with the teachings themselves

1 January 25, 2021

Every kind of teaching is transmitted through the culture and knowledge of human beings. But it is important not to confuse any culture or tradition with the teachings themselves, because the essence of the teachings is knowledge of the nature of the individual. Any given culture can be of great value because it is the means which enables people to receive the message of a teaching, but it is not the teaching itself. ~ Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche
If you exaggerate the value of external objects

2 January 25, 2021

If you exaggerate the value of external objects, thinking that they are the most important things in life, you ignore your inner beauty and internal joyful energy; if you look only outside of yourself, you neglect your most precious human qualities — your intellect and your potential to communicate in higher ways. Thus, meditation shows you clean clear which objects of attachment confuse you and with which kinds of mind you relate to them. ~ Lama Yeshe
Thinking of you on your birthday

1 January 23, 2021

Ananda has 2 little cakes for his birthday today. He does not want anything else.

Thinking of you on your birthday, and wishing you all the best! I hope it is as fantastic as you are!

I hope that you have the greatest birthday ever from the moment you open your eyes in the morning until they close late at night.

Wishing you all the great things in life, hope this day will bring you an extra share of all that makes you happiest. Happy birthday.

— Unknown
Being confronted with the truth

Comment January 23, 2021

Most of us tend to resent being confronted with the truth, and from resentment springs denial. The most obvious example is that we feel annoyed when we are forced to acknowledge the illusory nature of our lives and the reality of death. We also take exception to contemplating it, even though death is an irrefutable universal truth. Our habitual reaction is to pretend it will never happen — which is how we deal with most of the other inconvenient truths we find difficult to stomach. ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Obstacles Create Fertile Ground for Practice

2 January 22, 2021

Practitioners sometimes endure long periods when their practice appears to have no effect on what seem to be particularly stubborn obstacles, and as a result assume their practice is not working. But they are wrong. With hindsight, they come to realise that the “obstacle” they so desperately wanted to eradicate was actually the best thing that ever happened them. This kind of turnaround is quite common, and with experience practitioners begin to appreciate that “bad” circumstances create a far more fertile ground for practice than “good” ones. ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche