Top 100 Sogyal Rinpoche Sayings
#1. Buddhist monk Sogyal Rinpoche put it this way: "Perhaps it is only those who understand just how fragile life is who know how precious it is.
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#2. 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.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#3. Our buddha nature is as good as any buddha's buddha nature.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#5. Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#6. Don't get too excited. In the end, it's neither good nor bad.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#7. What the world needs more than anything are Bodhisattvas of peace, lawyers, politicians, teachers working tirelessly for the enlightenment of themselves and others.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#8. Tomorrow or the next life - which comes first, we never know.
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#9. We and all sentient beings fundamentally have the buddha nature as our innermost essence ...
Sogyal Rinpoche
#10. Once an old woman came to Buddha and asked him how to meditate. He told her to remain aware of every movement of her hands as she drew the water from the well, knowing that if she did, she would soon find herself in that state of alert and spacious calm that is meditation.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#11. Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#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.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#13. The spiritual journey is one of continuous learning and purification. When you know this, you become humble.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#14. The key to finding a happy balance in modern life is simplicity.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#15. A real miracle, he said, was if someone could liberate just one negative emotion. More
Sogyal Rinpoche
#17. Why, if we are as pragmatic as we claim, don't we begin to ask ourselves seriously: Where does our real future lie?
Sogyal Rinpoche
#18. Our society promotes cleverness instead of wisdom, and celebrates the most superficial, harsh, and least useful aspects of our intelligence.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#19. Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life reveals just the opposite: that letting go is the real path to freedom.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#20. 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. [ ... ] Learning to live is learning to let go.
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#22. The Dalai Lama has warned: 'Too many people have the Dharma only on their lips. Instead of using the Dharma to destroy their own negative thoughts, they regard the Dharma as a possession and themselves as the owner.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#23. The most essential thing in life is to establish an unafraid, heartfelt communication with others.
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#24. 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,
Sogyal Rinpoche
#25. Yet is our deepest desire is truly to live and go on living, why do we blindly insist that death is the end? Why not at least try and explore the possibility that there may be a life after?
Sogyal Rinpoche
#26. Theories are like patches on a coat, one day they just wear off.
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#27. In this complex world, the best way to survive is to be genuine.
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#28. Even though the meditator may leave the meditation, the meditation will not leave the meditator.
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#29. There would be no chance to get to know death at all ... if it happened only once.
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#30. 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.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#31. The masters say if you create an auspicious condition in your body and your environment then meditation and realization will automatically arise.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#32. What should we "do" with the mind in meditation? Nothing. Just leave it, simply, as it is.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#33. Meditation is not something that you can "do"; it is something that has to happen spontaneously, only when the practice has been perfected. However,
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#34. It is compassion, then, that is the best protection; it is also, as the great masters of the past have always known, the source of all healing.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#35. Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#36. Saints and mystics throughout history have adorned their realisations with different names and given them different faces and interpretations, but what they are all fundamentally experiencing is the essential nature of the mind.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#37. The absolute truth cannot be realized within the domain of the ordinary mind, and the path beyond the ordinary mind is the path of the heart.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#38. Samsara is the mind turned outwardly, lost in its projections. Nirvana is the mind turned inwardly, recognizing its true nature.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#39. Just look at your mind for a few minutes. You will see that it is like a flea, constantly hopping to and fro. You will see that thoughts arise without any reason, without any connection. Swept along by the chaos of every moment, we are the victims of the fickleness of our mind.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#40. Peaceful death is really an essential human right, more essential perhaps even than the right to vote or the right to justice; it is a right on which, all religious traditions tell us, a great deal depends for the well-being and spiritual future of the dying person. There
Sogyal Rinpoche
#41. William Blake: He who binds to himself a Joy, Does the winged life destroy; He who kisses the Joy as it flies, Lives in Eternity's sunrise.7
Sogyal Rinpoche
#42. It is important to remember always that the principle of egolessness does not mean that there was an ego in the first place, and the Buddhists did away with it. On the contrary, it means there was never any ego at all to begin with. To realize that is called egolessness.
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#43. Nothing could be further from the truth. But in a world dedicated to distraction, silence and stillness terrify us; we protect ourselves from them with noise and frantic busyness. Looking into the nature of our mind is the last thing we would dare to do. Sometimes I think we don't want to
Sogyal Rinpoche
#44. The purpose of meditation is to awaken in us the sky-like nature of mind, and to introduce us to that which we really are, our unchanging pure awareness, which underlies the whole of life and death
Sogyal Rinpoche
#45. I shall never forget when Dudjom Rinpoche, in a moment of intimacy, leaned toward me and said in his soft, hoarse, slightly high-pitched voice: "You know, don't you, that actually all these things around us go away, just go away ... " With
Sogyal Rinpoche
#46. 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.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#47. Let your heart go out in spontaneous and immeasurable compassion.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#48. Our lives are lived in intense and anxious struggle, in a swirl of speed and aggression, in competing, grasping, possessing and achieving, forever burdening ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations.
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#49. Just as the ocean has waves or the sun has rays, so the minds's own radiance is its thoughts and emotions.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#50. The nature of everything is illusory and ephemeral, Those with dualistic perception regard suffering as happiness, Like they who lick the honey from a razor's edge. How pitiful they who cling strongly to concrete reality: Turn your attention within, my heart friends.5
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#51. When I came to the West, I realized there was much hunger for spiritual teachings, but no environment for spirituality.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#53. The whole of meditation practice can be essentialized into these 3 crucial points: Bring your mind home. Release. And relax!
Sogyal Rinpoche
#54. Tibetan thangka paintings and derive strength from their beauty.
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#55. 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".
Sogyal Rinpoche
#56. Generally we waste our lives, distracted from our true selves, in endless activity. Meditation is the way to bring us back to ourselves, where we can really experience and taste our full being.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#57. All too often people come to meditation in the hope of extraordinary results, like visions, lights, or some supernatural miracle. When no such thing occurs, they feel extremely disappointed. But the real miracle of meditation is more ordinary and much more useful ...
Sogyal Rinpoche
#59. Our problems, all come from nothing; they are all based on a misunderstanding that does not even exist.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#60. The Western poet Rainer Maria Rilke has said that our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure.12
Sogyal Rinpoche
#61. And when you talk about realization, accomplishment for that matter enlightenment is that when you realize the fundamental essence of your mind.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#62. That goodness is what survives death, a fundamental goodness that is in each and every one of us. The whole of our life is a teaching of how to uncover that strong goodness, and a training toward realizing it.
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#65. I can't say it strongly enough; to integrate meditation in action is the whole ground and point and purpose of meditation
Sogyal Rinpoche
#66. 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.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#67. Whatever we have done with our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything, counts.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#68. More important than finding the teacher is finding and following the truth of the teaching ...
Sogyal Rinpoche
#69. We must never forget that it is through our actions, words, and thoughts that we have a choice.
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#70. This dying forces you to look into yourself. And in this, compassion is the only way. Love is the only way.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#71. Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation.
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#72. Speak or act with a pure mind and happiness will follow.
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#73. Why exactly are we so frightened of death that we avoid looking at it altogether? Somewhere, deep down, we know we cannot avoid facing death forever. We know, in Milarepa's words: "This thing called 'corpse' we dread so much is living with us here and now."
Sogyal Rinpoche
#74. Anyone looking honestly at life will see that we live in a constant state of suspense and ambiguity.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#75. We need to make a very clear distinction between what is in our ego's self-interest and what is in our ultimate interest; it is from mistaking one for the other that all our suffering comes.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#76. How many of us are swept away by what I have come to call an 'active laziness'?
It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#78. We may idealize freedom, but when it comes to our habits, we are completely enslaved.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#79. Rely on the message of the teacher, not on his personality; Rely
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#80. 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.
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#81. 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.
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#82. Just as if you put your finger into water, it will get wet, and if you put it into fire, it will burn, so if you invest your mind in the wisdom mind of the Buddhas, it will transform into their wisdom nature.
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#83. The secret is not to "think" about thoughts, but to allow them to flow through the mind, while keeping your mind free of afterthoughts.
Sogyal Rinpoche
#84. There is only one way of attaining liberation and of obtaining the omniscience of enlightenment: following an authentic spiritual master.
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#85. We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. MONTAIGNE
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#86. Because the dying also are unable to help themselves, we should relieve them of discomfort and anxiety, and assist them, as far as we can, to die with composure.
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#87. The nature of mind is just too close to be recognized. Just as we are unable to see our own face, mind finds it difficult to look into its own nature. 2.
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#88. 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.
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#90. Taking impermanence truly to heart is to be slowly freed from the idea of grasping, from our flawed and destructive view of permanence, from the false passion for security on which we have built everything.
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#91. Living with the immediacy of death helps you sort out your priorities in life. It helps you to live a less trivial life.
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#92. This world can seem marvellously convincing until death collapses the illusion and evicts us from our hiding place. What will happen to us then if we have no clue of any deeper reality?
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#93. 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.
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#94. This world can seem marvelously convincing until death collapses the illusion and evicts us from our hiding place.
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#95. True spirituality is to be aware that if we are interdependent with everything and everyone else, even our smallest, least significant thought, word and action have real consequences throughout the universe.
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#96. 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.
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#97. But, in fact, impermanence is like some of the people we meet in life - difficult and disturbing at first, but on deeper acquaintance far friendlier and less unnerving than we could have imagined.
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#98. 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.
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#99. 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 .
Sogyal Rinpoche
#100. 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.
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