Explore Quotes by Sogyal Rinpoche

Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death? When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into your life now... and come to face the truth of your self. Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.

This dying forces you to look into yourself. And in this, compassion is the only way. Love is the only way.

What we have to learn, in both meditation and in life, is to be free of attachment to the good experiences, and free of aversion to the negative ones.

Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if we´re honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries. Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity.

In meditation take care not to impose anything on the mind, or to tax it. When you meditate there should be no effort to control, and no attempt to be peaceful. Don't be overly solemn or feel that you are taking part in some special ritual; let go even of the idea that you are meditating. Let your body remain as it is, your breath as you find it, and remain in your natural condition of unchanging pure awareness.

Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating - the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to - you have uncovered in yourself your own wise guide.

...we and all sentient beings fundamentally have the buddha nature as our innermost essence. . . .

Western laziness consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues.

Our lives are lived in intense and anxious struggle, in a swirl of speed and aggression, in competing, grasping, possessing and achieving, forever burdening ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations.

Why, if we are as pragmatic as we claim, don't we begin to ask ourselves seriously: Where does our real future lie?

Modern civilization is largely devoted to the pursuit of the cult of delusion. There is no general information about the nature of mind. It is hardly ever written about by writers or intellectuals; modern philosophers do not speak of it directly; the majority of scientists deny it could possibly be there at all. It plays no part in popular culture: no one sings about it, no one talks about it in plays, and it's not on TV. We are actually educated into believing that nothing is real beyond what we can perceive with our ordinary senses.

Meditation is bringing the mind home.

Generally we waste our lives, distracted from our true selves, in endless activity. Meditation is the way to bring us back to ourselves, where we can really experience and taste our full being.

The act of meditation is being spacious.

Sitting like a mountain let your mind rise and fly and soar.

Just as the ocean has waves or the sun has rays, so the minds's own radiance is its thoughts and emotions.

The masters say if you create an auspicious condition in your body and your environment then meditation and realization will automatically arise.

The whole of meditation practice can be essentialized into these 3 crucial points: Bring your mind home. Release. And relax!

When one past thought has ceased and a future thought has not yet risen, _x000D__x000D_in that gap, in between, isn't there a consciousness of the present moment;_x000D__x000D_ fresh, virgin, unaltered by even a hair's breadth of a concept, a luminous, naked awareness? _x000D__x000D_Well, that's what naturally peaceful awareness is.

Samsara is the mind turned outwardly, lost in its projections. Nirvana is the mind turned inwardly, recognizing its true nature.

We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don't know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.