To recognize the nature of your mind is to engender in the ground of your being an understanding that will change your entire worldview and help you discover and develop, naturally and spontaneously, a compassionate desire to serve all beings, as well as a direct knowledge of how best you can do so, with whatever skill or ability you have, in whatever circumstances you find yourself.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

You can have no greater ally in the war against your greatest enemy, your own self-grasping and self-cherishing, than the practice of compassion.

It is compassion, dedicating ourselves to others, taking on their suffering instead of cherishing ourselves, that, hand in hand with the wisdom of egolessness, destroys most effectively and most completely that ancient attachment to a false self that has been the cause of our endless wandering in samsara.

That is why in our tradition we see compassion as the source and essence of enlightenment and the heart of enlightened activity.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

There is a spark of hope, a playful humor about the posture we take in meditation, which lies in the secret understanding that we all have the buddha nature. So when you assume this posture, you are playfully imitating a buddha, acknowledging and giving real encouragement to the emergence of your own buddha nature. You begin to respect yourself as a potential buddha.

At the same time, you still recognize your relative condition. But because you have let yourself be inspired by a joyful trust in your own true buddha nature, you can accept your negative aspects more easily and deal with them more generously and with more humor.

When you meditate, invite yourself to feel the self-esteem, the dignity, and the strong humility of the buddha that you are. If you simply let yourself be inspired by this joyful trust, it is enough: Out of this understanding and confidence, meditation will naturally arise.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

When you fall from a great height, there is only one possible place to land: on the ground—the ground of truth. And if you have the understanding that comes from spiritual practice, then falling is in no way a disaster, but the discovery of an inner refuge.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

When I am in the nature of mind, the ordinary mind is no longer there. There is no need to sustain or confirm a sense of being: I simply am. A fundamental trust is present. There is nothing in particular to do.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

Each time the losses and deceptions of life teach us about impermanence, they bring us closer to the truth.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

Sometimes when I meditate, I don’t use any particular method. I just allow my mind to rest, and I find, especially when I am inspired, that I can bring my mind home and relax very quickly. I sit quietly and rest in the nature of mind; I don’t question or doubt whether I am in the “correct” state. There is no effort, only a rich understanding, wakefulness, and unshakable certainty.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

Over 2,500 years ago, a man who had been searching for the truth for many, many lifetimes came to a quiet place in northern India and sat down under a tree. He continued to sit under the tree, with immense resolve, and vowed not to get up until he had found the truth.

At dusk, it is said, he conquered all the dark forces of delusion; and early the next morning, as the star Venus broke in the dawn sky, the man was rewarded for his age-long patience, discipline, and flawless concentration by achieving the final goal of human existence, enlightenment.

At that sacred moment, the earth itself shuddered, as if “drunk with bliss,” and as the scriptures tell us, “No one anywhere was angry, ill, or sad; no one did evil, none was proud; the world became quite quiet, as though it had reached full perfection.” This man became known as the Buddha.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this life. For it is only through meditation that you can undertake the journey to discover your true nature, and so find the stability and confidence you will need to live, and die, well. Meditation is the road to enlightenment.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

The bodhisattva's attitude is the complete opposite of how we normally operate. With compassion, bodhisattvas are willing to take on the suffering of others, and with love, they wholeheartedly give away their own well-being and happiness. They have tremendous vision, capacity of mind and courage. Whatever happens to them, whether they are attacked, mistreated or criticized, they never lose heart and never respond to others with anger or aggression, only love and compassion.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

Thoughts are like the wind; they come and go. The secret is not to "think" about thoughts, but to allow them to flow through the mind, while keeping your mind free from after thoughts

by Sogyal Rinpoche

In the spaciousness of meditation, you can view your thoughts and emotions with a totally unbiased attitude.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

One of the greatest of Tibet’s many woman masters, Ma Chik Lap Drön, said: “Alert, alert; yet relax, relax. This is a crucial point for the View in meditation.”

Alert your alertness, but at the same time be relaxed, so relaxed in fact that you don’t even hold onto an idea of relaxation.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

At every moment in our lives we need compassion, but what more urgent moment could there be than when we are dying?

What more wonderful and consoling gift could you give to dying people than the knowledge that they are being prayed for, and that you are taking on their suffering and purifying their negative karma through your practice for them?

Even if they don’t know that you are practicing for them, you are helping them and in turn they are helping you. They are actively helping you to develop your compassion, and so to purify and heal yourself. For me, all dying people are teachers, giving to all those who help them a chance to transform themselves through developing their compassion.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

What really matters is not just the practice of sitting, but far more the state of mind you find yourself in after meditation. It is this calm and centered state of mind you should prolong through everything you do.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

As the Buddha said in his first teaching, the root of all our suffering in samsara is ignorance. Ignorance, until we free ourselves from it, can seem endless, and even when we have embarked on the spiritual path our search is fogged by it. However, if you remember this and keep the teachings in your heart, you will gradually develop the discernment to recognize the innumerable confusions of ignorance for what they are, and so never jeopardize your commitment or lose your perspective.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

The problem in Western society is that you don't look at life and death as a whole. You isolate death. That's why there's so much fear.

by Sogyal Rinpoche

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… It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are?

Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn't that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own?

by Sogyal Rinpoche

You may have the bravery of a strong fighter, but unless you possess the intelligent strength of discriminating knowledge, you will not turn the tide in the battle with samsara. So possess the intelligent strength of discriminating knowledge.

by Sogyal Rinpoche