Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Tibetan Buddhist Contemporary Author, Yogan, Tibetan Dzogchen Lama of the Nyingma Tradition. Founder and Spiritual Director of Rigpa

"Knowing that I cannot escape it, I see no point in worrying about."

"Learn not to overstretch ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations, but to simplify our lives more and more. The key to finding a happy balance in modern lives is simplicity."

"Learning to live is learning to let go."

"No words can describe it No example can point to it Samsara does not make it worse Nirvana does not make it better It has never been born It has never ceased It has never been liberated It has never been deluded It has never existed It has never been nonexistent It has no limits at all It does not fall into any kind of category"

"Now when the bardo of dying dawns upon me, I will abandon all grasping, yearning, and attachment, enter uninstructed into clear awareness of the teaching, and eject my consciousness into the space of unborn Rig-pa; as I leave this compound body of flesh and blood I will know it to be a transitory illusion."

"Now when the bardo of this life is dawning upon me, I will abandon laziness for which life has no time, Enter, undistracted, the path of listening and hearing, reflection and contemplation, and meditation, Making perceptions and mind the path, and realize the three kayas: the enlightened mind; Now that I have once attained a human body, There is no time on the path for the mind to wander."

"Living with the immediacy of death helps you sort out your priorities in life. It helps you to live a less trivial life."

"Looking into death needn?t be frightening or morbid. Why not reflect on death when you are really inspired, relaxed, and comfortable, lying in bed, or on vacation, or listening to music that particularly delights you? Why not reflect on it when you are happy, in good health, confident, and full of well-being? Don?t you notice?"

"More and more, I have come to realize how thoughts and concepts are all that block us from always being ... in the absolute.... When the view is there, thoughts are seen for what they truly are fleeting and transparent, and only relative.... You do not cling to thoughts and emotions or reject them, but welcome them all within the vast embrace of Rigpa."

"Our Minds can be wonderful, but at the same time they can be our very worst enemy. They give us so much trouble. Sometimes I wish the mind were like a set of dentures, which we could take out and leave on our bedside table overnight. At least we would a break from its tiring and tiresome escapades. We are so at the mercy of our minds that even when we find that the spiritual teachings strike a chord inside us, and move us more than anything we have ever experienced, still we hold back, because of some deep-seated and inexplicable suspicion. Somewhere along the line, though we have to stop mistrusting. We have to let go of the suspicion and doubt, which are supposed to protect us but never work, and only end up hurting us even more than what they are supposed to defend us from."

"Planning for the future is like going fishing in a dry gulch; Nothing ever works out as you wanted, so give up all your schemes and ambitions. If you have got to think about something? Make it the uncertainty of the hour of your death."

"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?"

"Our buddha nature, then, has an active aspect, which is our "inner teacher." From the very moment we became obscured, this inner teacher has been working tirelessly for us, tirelessly trying to bring us back to the radiance and spaciousness of our true being... When we have prayed and aspired and hungered for the truth for a long time, for many, many lives, and when our karma has become sufficiently purified, a kind of miracle takes place. And this miracle, if we can understand and use it, can lead to the end of ignorance forever: The inner teacher, who has been with us always, manifests in the form of the "outer teacher," whom, almost as if by magic, we actually encounter. . . . He or she is nothing less than the human face of the absolute? the crystallization of the wisdom of all the buddhas and the embodiment of their compassion directed always toward you? For me, my masters have been the embodiment of living truth, undeniable signs that enlightenment is possible in a body, in this life, in this world, even here and even now, the supreme inspirations in my practice, in my work, in my life, and in my journey toward liberation."

"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."

"So often it is only when people suddenly feel they are losing their partner that they realize how much they love them. Then they cling on even tighter. But the more they grasp, the more the other person escapes them, and the more fragile the relationship becomes. So often we want happiness, but the very way we pursue it is so clumsy and unskillful that it brings only more sorrow. Usually we assume we must grasp in order to have that something that will ensure our happiness. We ask ourselves: ?How can we possibly enjoy anything if we cannot own it?? How often attachment is mistaken for love! Even when the relationship is a good one, love can be 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."

"So ego, then, is the absence of true knowledge of who we really are, together with its result: a doomed clutching on, at all costs, to a cobbled together and makeshift image of ourselves, an inevitably chameleon charlatan self that keeps changing and has to, to keep alive the fiction of its existence... Ego is then defined as incessant movements of grasping at a delusory notion of "I" and "mine," self and other, and all the concepts, ideas, desires, and activity that will sustain that false construction... The fact that we need to grasp at all and go on and on grasping shows that in the depths of our being we know that the self does not inherently exist... (The ego's greatest triumph) is to inveigle us into believing its best interests are our best interests, and even into identifying our very survival with its own. This is a savage irony, considering that ego and its grasping are at the root of all our suffering. Yet ego is so convincing, and we have been its dupe for so long, that the thought that we might ever become egoless terrifies us."

"Renunciation has both sadness and joy in it: sadness because you realize the futility of your old ways, and joy because of the greater vision that begins to unfold when you are able to let go of them. This is no ordinary joy. It is a joy that gives birth to a new and profound."

"Quietly sitting, body still, speech silent, mind at peace, let your thoughts and emotions, whatever arises, comes and go, without clinging to anything."

"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."

"Spiritual truth is not something elaborate and esoteric, it is in fact profound common sense. 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. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being."

"The act of meditation is being spacious."

"The Buddha said that when we dedicate merit, it is like adding a drop of water to the ocean. Just as a drop of water added to the ocean will not dry up but will exist as long as the ocean itself exists, so, too, if we dedicate the merit of any virtuous deed, it merges with the vast ocean of merit that endures until enlightenment."

"Speak or act with a pure mind and happiness will follow."

"The deepest compassions are really inspired from the deepest state of wisdom. It is that when we really come to understand the nature of our mind do we become free of ourselves; the limitation of our ego dissolves in a sense. As such we see the world in a totally different light; we see beings in a much purer or in a truer way, and so from that comes a kind of limitless compassion. Just as, if you use an example, like the clouds are the ordinary mind, when through the inspiration, maybe say like there's a wind of inspiration, when the clouds are dispersed away, revealing the sky-like nature of mind, and from out of the sky-like nature of mind comes the compassion of the sun that shines forth and you see really kind of unbiasedly, without any bias at all. So in many ways it is said in the highest teachings that meditation is the union of wisdom and compassion, that out of the state of wisdom comes the real compassion. But also at the same time we have also the practice of, you see, developing compassion on a relative level. I think it's very important, knowing Buddhism, is there are always we speak of the two truths, the relative truth, which is conventional truth, and the absolute truth and the ultimate truth. I think it's very important to understand both. Like the View is the absolute; one should have the understanding of the absolute. But then if you really understand that deeply -- because sometimes there's a danger, if you understand the absolute, and if you do not really have the training or the proper training and teaching, that you can become kind of arrogant. You think you've realized something, you know, some extraordinary state, perhaps like enlightenment or something, but then you have no compassion, or there is really no integration. I think it's important, really, once we've really realized the wisdom of our nature of mind, if you really, truly realize that from that comes compassion, which is really related. Because once you have that understanding, the way you see is very different. And just ordinarily when we have a greater understanding, then we actually are much more compassionate. I think in the world too, as you know, the most important thing we need is understanding. In fact the nature of mind is really the root of understanding."

"The definition of mantra is "that which protects the mind." That which protects the mind from negativity, or that which protects you from your own mind, is called mantra."

"The future is in our hands, and in the hands of our heart."

"The essence of meditation practice in Dzogchen is encapsulated by these four points: (1) When one past thought has ceased and a future thought has not yet risen, in that gap, in between, isn?t there a consciousness of the present moment; fresh, virgin, unaltered by even a hair?s breadth of a concept, a luminous, naked awareness? Well, that is what Rigpa is! (2) Yet it doesn?t stay in that state forever, because another thought suddenly arises, doesn?t it? This is the self-radiance of that Rigpa. (3) However, if you do not recognize this thought for what it really is, the very instant it arises, then it will turn into just another ordinary thought, as before. This is called the chain of delusion, and is the root of samsara. (4) If you are able to recognize the true nature of the thought as soon as it arises, and leave it alone without any follow-up, then whatever thoughts arise all automatically dissolve back into the vast expanse of Rigpa and are liberated? Clearly this takes a lifetime of practice to understand and realize the full richness and majesty of these four profound yet simple points, and here I can only give you a taste of the vastness of what is meditation in Dzogchen."

"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."

"The heart of Buddha?s teaching is to see ?the actual state of things, as they are?, and this is called the true View."

"The real glory of meditation lies not in any method but in its continual living experience of presence, in its bliss, clarity, peace, and most important of all, complete absence of grasping. The diminishing of grasping in yourself is a sign that you are becoming freer of yourself. And the more you experience this freedom, the clearer the sign that the ego and the hopes and fears that keep it alive are dissolving and the closer you will come to the infinitely generous 'wisdom of egolessness.' When you live in the wisdom home, you'll no longer find a barrier between 'I' and 'you,' 'this' and 'that,' 'inside' and 'outside' you'll have come, finally, to your true home, the state of non-duality."

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

"There is only one way of attaining liberation and of obtaining the omniscience of enlightenment following an authentic spiritual master."

"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.""

"There would be no chance to get to know death at all ...if it happened only once."

"To contemplate impermanence on its own is not enough: You have to work with it in your life. Let's try an experiment. Pick up a coin. Imagine that it represents the object at which you are grasping. Hold it tightly clutched in your fist and extend your arm, with the palm of your hand facing the ground. Now if you let go or relax your grip, you will lose what you are clinging to. That's why you hold on. But there's another possibility: You can let go and yet keep hold of it. With your arm still outstretched, turn your hand over so that it faces the sky. Release your hand and the coin still rests on your open palm. You let go. And the coin is still yours, even with all this space around it. So there is a way in which we can accept impermanence and still relish life, at one and the same time, without grasping."

"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. Because he or she knows you through and through, since he or she is you, your guide can help you, with increasing clarity and humor, negotiate all the difficulties of your thoughts and emotions. The more often you listen to this wise guide, the more easily you will be able to change your negative moods yourself, see through them, and even laugh at them for the absurd dramas and ridiculous illusions that they are. The more you listen, the more guidance you will receive. If you follow the voice of your wise guide, and let the ego fall silent, you come to experience that presence of wisdom and joy and bliss that you really are."

"To resolve the view, ask those who have realization. To practice meditation, listen to those who have experience and understanding."

"To train in compassion is to know that all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honor all those who suffer, and to know that you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone."

"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."

"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. Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home."

"When the nature of mind is introduced by a master, it is just too simple for us to believe. Our ordinary mind tells us this cannot be, there must be something more to it than this. It must surely be more "glorious", with light blazing in space around us, angels with flowing golden hair swooping down to meet us, and a deep Wizard of Oz voice announcing, "Now you have been introduced to the nature of your mind." There is no such drama."

"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."

"We are what we think. With our thoughts we make the world. All that we are will rise with our thoughts."

"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."

"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."

"When you meditate deeply on compassion, a realization dawns in you that the only way for you to be of complete help to other beings is for you to gain enlightenment. From that a strong sense of determination and universal responsibility is born, and the compassionate wish arises in you at that moment to attain."

"When you keep company with an eminent master, his qualities will automatically influence you."

"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. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being."

"Whenever doubt arises, see it simply as an obstacle, recognize it as an understanding that is calling out to be clarified or unblocked, and know that it is not a fundamental problem but simply a stage in the process of purification and learning. Allow the process to continue and complete itself, and never lose your trust or resolve. This is the way followed by all the great practitioners of the past, who used to say: ?There is no armor like perseverance.?"