vajrarays

the truth of suffering

2009-08-11T13:42:00.004+07:00

the first noble truth, the truth of suffering, is the first real insight of pracitioner. it is quite delightful that such a practitioner actually has the guts, bravery, and clarity to see pain in such a precise and subtle way. we can actually divide pain into sections and dissect it. we can see it as it is, which is quite victorious. that is why it is called the truth of suffering.

Chögyam Trungpa

six words of advice

2009-07-02T23:09:00.003+07:00

"don’t recall." let go of what has passed.
"don’t imagine." let go of what may come.
"don’t think." let go of what is happening now.
"don’t examine." don’t try to figure anything out.
"don’t control." don’t try to make anything happen.
"relax, right now, and rest."

tilopa

Intimacy

2009-03-30T00:25:00.004+07:00

we don't want to be alone. at least we want other people to understand us. and they don't. the idea that someone else can really understand us is an illusion--as something that we maintain.

but there are moments of intimacy. there are moments when people absolutely meet. but you can't plan them; you can't strategize for them; you can't prepare for them; and you can't hold on to them. and generally speaking, those moments of intimacy only happen when people are willing to be completely alone.

as long as we are looking at others as potential escape routes for our own loneliness, intimacy is not possible.

Reggie Ray

transcendent perfections

2009-03-07T16:25:00.003+07:00

perfectly give up belief in any true existence,
there is no other generosity than this.
perfectly give up guile and deceit,
there is no other discipline.
perfectly transcend all fear of the true meaning,
there is no other patience.
perfectly remain inseparable from the practice,
there is no other diligence.
perfectly stay in the natural flow,
there is no other concentration.
perfectly realize the natural state,
there is no other wisdom

milarepa

no choice

2009-03-07T14:16:00.004+07:00

you have no choice at all. whatever happens is an expression of the guru. the situation could be painful or inspiring, but both pain and pleasure are one in this openness of seeing the situation as guru.

Chögyam Trungpa

living a myth

2009-01-25T20:38:00.005+07:00

"Living" a myth implies a genuinely "religious" experience, since it differs from the ordinary experience of everyday life. the "religiousness" of this experience is due to the fact that one re-enacts fabulous, exalting, significant events, one again witnesses the creative deeds of the Supernaturals; one ceases to exist in the everyday world and enters a transfigured, auroral world impregnated with the Supernaturals' presence. what is involved is not a commemoration of mythical events but a reiteration of them. the protagonists of the myth are made present, one becomes their contemporary.

to re-experience the sacred Time, to re-enact it as often as possible, to witness again the spectacle of the divine works, to meet with the Supernaturals and relearn their creative lesson is the desire that runs like a pattern through all the ritual reiterations of myths.

myths reveal that the World, man, and life have a supernatural origin and history, and that this history is significant, precious, and exemplary.

Mircea Eliade

true love

2009-01-16T22:57:00.003+07:00

true love hurts. it always has to hurt. it must be painful to love someone, painful to leave them, you might have to die for them. when people marry they have to give up everything to love each other. the mother who gives birth to her child suffers much. it is the same for us in the religious life. to belong fully to God we have to give up everything. only then can we truly love.

Teresa of Calcutta

not romantic

2009-01-02T19:43:00.002+07:00

It is very fine to look back on the lives of the great spiritual teachers, but equally, it is not particularly romantic. They had the same problems and difficulties in searching for the teachings that we have in the century. So there’s always hope for all of us; we don’t particularly have to be born perfect. We could just be ordinary people, perfectly ordinary in the tugged sense; but equally we have a chance to develop spiritual understanding, as well as to attain enlightenment. So therefore, the point of looking back to various great teachers, is not that there is something mysterious, something magical about them, but that they were just ordinary when they began. The point is just to see the way they proceed through the various situations which forced them to develop.

Chögyam Trungpa

holding your heartbreak

2009-01-01T19:38:00.000+07:00

if we know how to hold our heartbreak, the heart breaks open into something larger. This tight little fist of a thing called the heart, by being broken open, now has new capacity to hold our own pain and our own joy, and a new capacity to hold the same in the larger world.

Parker Palmer

inspired motivation

2008-12-30T09:59:00.005+07:00

inspired motivation comes from something beyond thought, something beyond the conceptualized ideas of "good" and "bad," "desirable" and "undesirable." beyond thought there is a kind of intelligence which is our basic nature, our background, an intuitive primordial intelligence, a feeling of space, a creative open way of dealing with situations. this kind of motivation is not intellectual: it is intuitive, precise.

Chögyam Trungpa

pedagogy of the oppressed

2008-12-26T17:57:00.005+07:00

dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human. dehumaniztion is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed.

because it is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those who made them so. in order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity, become in turn oprressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both.

this, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. the oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both.

paulo freire

it's up to you

2008-12-24T23:07:00.000+07:00

spirituality is all about exploring the subtleties of our lives. it is about finding out what our life is and who we are. it has nothing to do with belonging to a church or following somebody else’s ideas of what we should do, what we should think, and who we should be. the practicing lineage provides you with teachings and tools to open up your own life, to discover your own depth and the meaning of your existence; to make “the lonely journey.” but it is left up to you to develop your own relationship with the practices, and to make the discoveries and find the answers.

reggie ray

right attitude

2008-12-21T22:13:00.005+07:00

please remember that the path does not go forward without challenges and obstacles to work through. when things are difficult for us practitioners, it is a sign that we are maturing in our experience of reality. realizing this, let us be inspired to practice with ever more devotion and commitment.

reggie ray

basic uncertainty

2008-12-09T13:09:00.003+07:00

in the sitting practice of meditation, there is basic space, basic openness. somehow, strangely, there is also basic uncertainty. if your discipline is completely certain and you know what you are doing, then there is no journey.

Chögyam Trungpa

individuality

2008-12-09T11:03:00.004+07:00

individuality is not an ego thing. sometimes we hear traditional Asian teachers tell us that the realization of individuality and the expression of individual creativity are egotistical, an expression of samsara. but i sense that such claims are more likely reflecting Asian cultural values than being anything inherent to buddhism itself.

practitioners everywhere are waking up to the same realization--that developing and expressing one's own individuality and creativity is actually what the planet needs and what reality is calling for. we as practitioners know this because when we meditate, when we enter the wilds of the unborn mind, we run into our deepest selves--not as a given, but as a challenge and a mission--and fulfilling this mission is the imperative that is being laid on us.

reginald ray

love

2008-12-08T21:03:00.002+07:00

perhaps this will put off a lot of people, but i am afraid love is not really the experience of beauty and romantic joy alone. love is associated with ugliness and pain and aggression, as well as with the beauty of the world; it is not the recreation of heaven.

love or compassion, the open path, is associated with "what is." in order to develop love --universal love, cosmic love, whatever you would like to call it --one must accept the whole situation of life as it is, both the light and the dark, the good and the bad. one must open oneself to life, whether you like it or not.

Chögyam Trungpa

nothing will be left

2008-12-05T12:42:00.006+07:00

the problem is that we tend to seek an easy and painless answer. but that kind of solution does not apply to the spiritual path, which many of us should not have begun at all. once we commit ourselves to the spiritual path, it is very painful and we are in for it. we have committed ourselves to the pain of exposing ourselves, of taking of our clothes, our skin, nerve, heart, brain, until we are exposed to the universe. nothing will be left. it will be terrible, excruciating, but that is the way it is.

Chögyam Trungpa

rhizome remains

2008-12-04T23:50:00.003+07:00

life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. the part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. when we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. what we see is the blossom, which passes. the rhizome remains.

C.G. Jung