You Are IT

The movement of life, the ever expanding quality of life is Brahman. The Supreme Reality, which, if you break your illusions and look at freely, you will realise is part of you and you are part of it.

In fact, the word Brahman comes from the Sanskrit root, ‘brh’, which means ever expanding, never stagnating, moving, full of life, acting.

– Sri M

Once you have the View, although the delusory perceptions of samsara may arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear, it’s not particularly disappointed either.

There is a deep sense of contentment. You chuckle from inside as you see the facade of samsara and nirvana; the View will keep you constantly amused, with a little inner smile bubbling away all the time.

– H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

It’s probably good to think of the ground of renunciation as being our good old selves, our basic decency and sense of humor. In Buddhist teachings, as well as in the teachings of many other contemplative or mystical traditions, the basic view is that people are fundamentally good and healthy.

It’s as if everyone who has ever been born has the same birthright, which is enormous potential of warm heart and clear mind. The ground of renunciation is realizing that we already have exactly what we need, that what we have already is good.

– Pema Chödrön

Welcome your full experience of life. Live life 360 degrees. Finally the observer is also welcomed, embraced and dissolves. Life lives itself.

~ Nithya Shanti

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce.

Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.

– Thich Nhat Hanh

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.

~ Kahlil Gibran

"…not by the endless work of replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts, but by effortlessly finding the space between thoughts…"

– Fred LaMotte

We all enter the spiritual path as ego-based beings, and as such we have ego-based hopes and fears. Practice is virtually never what we expect. We feel like we’ve got it all wrong, thinking, “The more I meditate, the worse I become.”

My teacher, Gendun Rinpoche, always responded to this by saying, “When you see your own shortcomings, it’s the dawn of qualities. If you only see your qualities, there’s a problem.”

– Lama Tsony

The present moment is not a dew drop. The present moment is an ocean. It holds the entire universe. The present moment is also a dew drop.

– Nithya Shanti

Intelligent Practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not. And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that. I am impermanence itself in a rapidly changing human form that appears solid. I fear to see what I am: an ever-changing energy field. I don’t want to be that.

So good practice is about fear. Fear takes the form of constantly thinking, speculating, analyzing, fantasizing. With all that activity we create a cloud to keep ourselves safe in make-believe practice. True practice is not safe; it’s anything but safe. But we don’t like that, so we obsess with our feverish efforts to achieve our version of the personal dream. Such obsessive practice is itself just another cloud between ourselves and reality.

The only thing that matters is seeing with an impersonal spotlight: seeing things as they really are. When the personal barrier drops away, why do we have to call it anything? We just live our lives. And when we die, we just die. No problem anywhere.

– Charlotte Joko Beck