Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

Each step may seem to take forever, but no matter how uninspired you feel, continue to follow your practice schedule precisely and consistently. This is how we can use our greatest enemy, habit, against itself.

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Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

HH Dalai Lama

OUR ULTIMATE aim as Buddhist practitioners is attaining the fully enlightened and omniscient state of a Buddha. The vehicle we require is a human body with a sane mind. Most of us take being alive as relatively healthy human beings for granted. In fact, human life is often referred to in Buddhist texts as extraordinary and precious. It is the result of an enormous accumulation of virtue, accrued by us over countless lives. 

Each human being has devoted a great amount of effort to attaining this physical state. Why is it of such value? Because it offers us the greatest opportunity for spiritual growth: the pursuit of our own happiness and that of others. Animals simply do not have the ability to willfully pursue virtue the way humans do. They are victims of their ignorance. 

We should therefore appreciate this valuable human vehicle and must also do all we can to ensure that we shall be reborn as human beings in our next life. Though we continue to aspire to attain full enlightenment, we should acknowledge that the path to Buddhahood is a long one for which we must also make short-term preparations.

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An Open Heart

Book by 14th Dalai Lama

SitaTara

Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Mama Ayuḥ Punya Jñānā Puśtiṃ Kuru Svāhā

(Om Tare Tuttare Ture Mama Ayuh Punya Jñana Pustim Kuru Svaha)

White Tara (Sitatara) is associated with long life. Her mantra is often chanted with a particular person in mind. She’s another representation of compassion, and she’s pictured as being endowed with seven eyes (look at the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, and her forehead) to symbolize the watchfulness of the compassionate mind.

SOURCE: wildmind.org

Mahaguru Padmasambhava

Lady Tsogyal asked the Lotus-Born master: What is the dividing line between shamatha and vipashyana? 

The master replied: Shamatha is when thought activity totally subsides and your attention remains unmoving; vipashyana is when you vividly see the nature of dharmata all at once. When applying this experientially in your stream-ofbeing, after you have settled into dharmata’s nature of equality, you vividly experience emptiness, the nature of things, in whatever you see and whatever you think—this is called the vital point of realizing nondual shamatha and vipashyana. Tsogyal, this advice of utmost importance I give to you.

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Treasures from Juniper Ridge: The Profound Instructions of Padmasambhava to the Dakini Yeshe Tsogyal

Book by Padmasambhava

His holiness Dalai Lama

LOVING-KINDNESS

 Just as compassion is the wish that all sentient beings be free of suffering, loving-kindness is the wish that all may enjoy happiness. As with compassion, when cultivating loving-kindness it is important to start by taking a specific individual as a focus of our meditation, and we then extend the scope of our concern further and further, to eventually encompass and embrace all sentient beings. Again, we begin by taking a neutral person, a person who inspires no strong feelings in us, as our object of meditation. We then extend this meditation to individual friends and family members and, ultimately, our particular enemies. We must use a real individual as the focus of our meditation, and then enhance our compassion and loving-kindness toward that person so that we can really experience compassion and loving-kindness toward others. We work on one person at a time. Otherwise, we might end up meditating on compassion toward all in a very general sense, with no specific focus or power to our meditation. Then, when we actually relate this kind of meditation to specific individuals we are not fond of, we might even think, “Oh, he is an exception.”LOVING-KINDNESS Just as compassion is the wish that all sentient beings be free of suffering, loving-kindness is the wish that all may enjoy happiness. As with compassion, when cultivating loving-kindness it is important to start by taking a specific individual as a focus of our meditation, and we then extend the scope of our concern further and further, to eventually encompass and embrace all sentient beings. Again, we begin by taking a neutral person, a person who inspires no strong feelings in us, as our object of meditation. We then extend this meditation to individual friends and family members and, ultimately, our particular enemies. We must use a real individual as the focus of our meditation, and then enhance our compassion and loving-kindness toward that person so that we can really experience compassion and loving-kindness toward others. We work on one person at a time. Otherwise, we might end up meditating on compassion toward all in a very general sense, with no specific focus or power to our meditation. Then, when we actually relate this kind of meditation to specific individuals we are not fond of, we might even think, “Oh, he is an exception.”

An Open Heart

Book by 14th Dalai Lama

Mahaguru Padmasambhava

Lady Tsogyal asked the Lotus-Born master: What is the dividing line between pain and pleasure? The master replied: Pain is uneasiness of mind, while pleasure is mental ease. When applying this experientially to your stream-of-being, look into the painful state of uneasiness and see that it does not consist of any concrete substance but rather is mind. Mind is empty, and this empty quality is a state of ease —this is the vital point of changing pain to ease. Tsogyal, this advice of utmost importance, I give to you.

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Treasures from Juniper Ridge: The Profound Instructions of Padmasambhava to the Dakini Yeshe Tsogyal

Book by Padmasambhava

An Open HeartBook by 14th Dalai Lama

SELF AND AFFLICTIONS

 If we examine our emotions, our experiences of powerful attachment or hostility, we find that at their root is an intense clinging to a concept of self. Such a self we assume to be independent and self-sufficient, with a solid reality. As our belief in this kind of self intensifies, so does our wish to satisfy and protect it. Let me give you an example.

 When you see a beautiful watch in a shop, you are naturally attracted to it. If the salesperson were to drop the watch, you would think, “Oh dear, the watch has fallen.” The impact this would have on you would not be very great. If, however, you bought the watch and have come to think of it as “my watch,” then, were you to drop it, the impact would be devastating. You would feel as if your heart were jumping out of you. Where does this powerful feeling come from? Possessiveness arises out of our sense of self. The stronger our sense of “me,” the stronger is our sense of “mine.” This is why it is so important that we work at undercutting our belief in an independent, self-sufficient self. Once we are able to question and dissolve the existence of such a concept of self, the emotions derived from it are also diminished.

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An Open Heart

Book by 14th Dalai Lama