When remaining in awareness itself, every thought movement, no matter what kind, is like a drawing in air.
Interpretation
Awareness allows us to see our thoughts as ephemeral and insignificant.
In this quote, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche emphasizes the notion that when we stay grounded in awareness, our thoughts—regardless of their nature—lose their weight and significance. Just as drawings in air are fleeting and insubstantial, so too are our mental patterns when observed with a clear, detached perspective. This suggests that cultivating awareness can lead to a profound understanding of the transient nature of thoughts and an increased sense of inner peace.
In practice
During a mindfulness retreat, this quote could inspire participants to observe their thoughts without attachment.
Don’t let any emotional thought concerning success or failure, fame or gain, overtake you, and don’t dwell upon them. Give up your personal shortcomings, such as foolish talk, distracting activities, and absentmindedness. Train in being totally gentle in all physical, verbal, or mental activities. Don’t ponder the flaws of others; think instead of their good sides.
The context of the general teachings is one of talking to a sentient being who is experiencing uninterrupted bewilderment one thought or emotion after another like the surface of the ocean in turmoil, without any recognition of mind essence. This confusion is continuous, without almost any break, life after life.
Being aggressive, you can accomplish some things, but with gentleness, you can accomplish all things.
The basic nature of all conscious beings is 'self-existing wakefulness'. _x000D_ _x000D_ Self-existing meaning spontaneous or without effort and wakefulness meaning natural awareness. _x000D_ _x000D_ To ignore our basic nature, is to wander in fear and confusion, _x000D_ _x000D_ to directly realise our essential nature is to be Enlightened.
and in some of the people of the town and community surrounding it, one of the characteristic diseases of the twentieth century was making its way: the suspicion that they would be greatly improved if they were somewhere else.
Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
But Gregor understood easily that it was not only consideration for him which prevented their moving, for he could easily have been transported in a suitable crate with a few air holes; what mainly prevented the family from moving was their complete hopelessness and the thought that they had been struck by a misfortune as none of their relatives and acquaintances had ever been hit.
The Gospel is not a theory; the Gospel is not a philosophy or an idea; the Gospel is not a way of thinking or feeling. The Gospel is an event in history.
Walks. The body advances, while the mind flutters around it like a bird.
She'd never imagined it like this-when she thought of someone (a woman like herself)losing her mind, she'd imagined shrieks and wails, hallucinations; but at that moment it had seemed clear that there was another way, far quieter; a way that was numb and hopeless, flat, so much so that an emotion as strong as sorrow would have been a relief.
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