40 Sogyal Rinpoche Quotes On Meditation & Death

List Of 40 Sogyal Rinpoche Quotes On Meditation And Death:

#1 “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. ”

#2 “Don’t worry about anything. Even if you find your attention wandering, there is no particular ‘thing’ you have to hold onto. Just let go, and drift in the awareness of the blessing.”

#3 “We may idealize freedom, but when it comes to our habits, we are completely enslaved.”

#4 “There would be no chance to get to know death at all …if it happened only once.”

#5 “If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions.”

#6 “As a Buddhist, I view death as a normal process, a reality that I accept will occur as long as I remain in this earthly existence.”

#7 ”The key to finding a happy balance in modern lives is simplicity.”

#8 “We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere.”

#9 “Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected.”

#10 “What is born will die, What has been gathered will be dispersed, What has been accumulated will be exhausted, What has been built up will collapse, And what has been high will be brought low.”

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#11 ”When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don’t actually “become” a Buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded.”

#12 “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.”

#13 “We are acting as if we were the last generation on the planet. Without a radical change in heart, in mind, in vision, the earth will end up like Venus, charred and dead.”

#14 “As long as you cultivate stillness, you may enjoy peace, but whenever your mind is a little bit disturbed, deluded thoughts will set in again.”

#15 “Whatever state of mind we are in now, whatever kind of person we are now: that’s what we will be like at the moment of death.”

#16 “Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation.”

#17 “Life and death are in the mind, and nowhere else.”

#18 “The secret is not to “think” about thoughts, but to allow them to flow through the mind, while keeping your mind free of afterthoughts.”

#19 “Just look at your mind for a few minutes. You will see that it is like a flea, constantly hopping to and fro.”

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#20 “As Stephen Levine says: “When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion.”

#21 ”In a world dedicated to distraction, silence and stillness terrify us; we protect ourselves from them with noise and frantic busyness.”

#22 “The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute.”

#23 “A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us.”

#24 “How often attachment is mistaken for love! Even when the relationship is a good one, love is spoiled by attachment, with its insecurity, possessiveness, and pride; and then when love is gone, all you have left to show for it are the “souvenirs” of love, the scars of attachment.”

#25 “Wrong views and wrong convictions can be the most devastating of all our delusions. Surely both Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot must have been convinced that they were right?”

#26 ”What we lack, especially in this culture, is the right undistracted and richly spacious environment of the mind, which can only be created through sustained meditation practice, and in which insights can be given the change slowly to mature and ripen.”

#27 ”To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.”

#28 “There is a famous saying: “If the mind is not contrived, it is spontaneously blissful, just as water, when not agitated, is by nature transparent and clear”.”

#29 “Anyone looking honestly at life will see that we live in a constant state of suspense and ambiguity.”

#30 “Real devotion is an unbroken receptivity to the truth. Real devotion is rooted in an awed and reverent gratitude, but one that is lucid, grounded, and intelligent.”

#31 “You must constantly nourish openness, breadth of vision, willingness, enthusiasm, and reverence, that will change the whole atmosphere of your mind.”

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#32 “When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.”

#33 “This world can seem marvelously convincing until death collapses the illusion and evicts us from our hiding place.”

#34 “Don’t you notice that there are particular moments when you are naturally inspired to introspection? Work with them gently, for these are the moments when you can go through a powerful experience, and your whole worldview can change quickly.”

#35 “There is only one law in the universe that never changes– that all things change, and that all things are impermanent.”

#36 “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.”

#37 “The nature of everything is illusory and ephemeral, Those with dualistic perception regard suffering as happiness.”

#38 “Whatever you find yourself thinking, let that thought rise and settle, without any constraint. Don’t grasp at it, feed it, or indulge it; don’t cling to it and don’t try to solidify it.”

#39 “Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity — but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our “biography,” our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards…”

#40 “So one moment you have lost something precious, and then, in the very next moment, you find your mind is resting in a deep state of peace.”

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