Self-Immolation

What is it that makes meditation so challenging? What is this restlessness that drives our body, speech and mind? There is some lack of satisfaction, a feeling of unease that is always present. We are constantly occupied with trying to distract us from this feeling. We habitually use our intellect to try to comprehend it, which, from my humble experience, just creates and puts us on paths right back to the feeling we are trying to escape. As we bind us to conditions like “this is why I’m unhappy” or “if this was true I would be happy”. And then even when these conditions are met, we are back where we started. What if this feeling of unease is the necessary direction? And meditation is simply just sitting with this feeling. And what if the less aversion we have to it, the more awake we are. Holding this view meditation becomes very straight forward and easy.

“By acknowledging that mind is continuous and the root circumstance of all phenomena, we must try to recognize its pure essence, which is Buddha nature. We must try to transform temporary obscurations into positive, contributing circumstances in order to become the same as all Buddhas. We must try to distill the pure essence from the unclear confusion of subject and object which remains in the fragile coincidence container of our nihilist habit's fragmented mind. Instead of creating impure and contradictory phenomena which are the cause of suffering, we must create pure and complementary phenomena through positive habits that create positive karma in our continuous Buddha nature land until we transcend the phenomena of relative truth and attain enlightenment” ~ Thinley Norbu Rinpoche

"The best response to negative emotion is to allow it to self-liberate, by remaining in non-dual consciousness, free from attachment and aversion. If we can do this, the emotion passes through us like a bird flying through space; no trace of its passage remains. The emotion arises and then spontaneously dissolves into emptiness." Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

How to interpret surface level contradictions? Listen to this explanation from a Buddhist: “These stories are not contradictory because Highly Realized beings abide in the Expanse of Great Equanimity with Perfect understanding and can do anything. Everything is possible. Everything is flexible. Enlightened beings can appear in any way they want or need to.” ~ Buddhist Scholar KPS Rinpoche

"It is difficult to feel fear without thinking that something is going wrong. We react impulsively when we judge others or ourselves in an attempt to escape the pain of suffering. It doesn't work, just as running away into the woods doesn't work either. Even sacred places are doomed to disappoint us if we go there motivated by a desire to escape. However, if we take refuge in the Dhamma, interest in understanding fear and learning from it can be triggered. Can we experience the feeling of fear without becoming afraid? Fear is still fear, but it is recognized through an expanded consciousness that is less foggy and less threatened. We can even begin to realize that fear too 'is what it is'. A non-judgmental and wholehearted recognition, in body and mind, of the condition of fear, here and now, can transform our pain into freedom. The willingness to recognize where we stand is the way." Ajahn Munindo

This verse is from, "the hymn to innana", one of the oldest devotional poems. It was written by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon of Akkad, who was a high priestess in Ur (modern day Iraq). The beauty of this verse shows how the beauty of the divine feminine transcends time.🇮🇶

New blog! And a brand new entry! On the Buddhist Concept of Divine Monarchy according to the Golden Light Sutra https://vajrakingdom.wordpress.com/2023/03/15/on-the-buddhist-concept-of-divine-monarchy-according-to-the-golden-light-sutra/

If you fully understand karma, at the deepest level, you will not only have compassion for beings who are suffering, but you will also have compassion for any beings who are harming others. - Chamtrul Rinpoche

"In the Vajra Vehicle, like the lesser vehicles, the practitioner overcomes all forms of ignorant conceptuality that create the grasped difference of this and that.By doing so, the phenomena produced by dualistic grasping are stopped and the conventional mindstream is eliminated.The practitioner opens up his inherent wisdom and the complete display of wisdom appearances with it.The experience of these pure appearances is the experience of bliss. Hence the practitioner returns to a wisdom which is a wisdom of co-emergent bliss-emptiness." Tony Duff

"As a disciple you must regard your Guru as an Enlightened Being. Even if from his own point of view he is not Enlightened and you, his disciple, have gained Buddhahood before him, you must still show him respect and pay homage. For instance, Maitreya, the fifth and next Buddha of the thousand of this world age, who now presides over Tusita Buddha-field, became Enlightened before his Guru, Sakyamuni Buddha. To demonstrate respect for his Guru, Maitreya has a stupa or reliquary monument on his forehead. Likewise Avalokitesvara, the incarnation of the compassion of all the Buddhas, is crowned in his eleven-headed aspect with the head of his Guru, Amitabha Buddha, the one who presides over Sukhavati Buddha-field. This learning from a Guru should not be like killing a deer to extract its musk and then discarding its corpse. Even after attaining Enlightenment you must still continue to honor your Guru who made all your achievements possible." Geshe Ngawang Dhargey

Approach what you find repulsive, help the ones you think you cannot help, and go places that scare you. - Machik Labdron

“Of all the battles in the world, ignorance is the most dangerous enemy and anger the deadliest weapon. Only a warrior of wisdom wielding the spear of compassion can defeat them” - Chamtrul Rinpoche

Any kind of adherence to views prevents the realization of a truly open awareness, the only capable of reflecting the boundless wholeness. Therefore, merely understanding the absence of inherent existence (through inferential conclusions - as in madhyamika-prasangika) is not enough to understand the Ultimate

By and large, human beings tend to prefer to fit in to society by following accepted rules of etiquette and being gentle, polite, and respectful. The irony is that this is also how most people imagine a spiritual person should behave. When a so-called dharma practitioner is seen to behave badly, we shake our heads over her audacity at presenting herself as a follower of the Buddha. Yet such judgments are better avoided, because to “fit in” is not what a genuine dharma practitioner strives for. Think of Tilopa, for example. He looked so outlandish that if he turned up on your doorstep today, odds are you would refuse to let him in. And you would have a point. He would most likely be almost completely naked; if you were lucky, he might be sporting some kind of G-string; his hair would never have been introduced to shampoo; and protruding from his mouth would quiver the tail of a live fish. What would your moral judgment be of such a being? “Him! A Buddhist?” This is how our theistic, moralistic, and judgmental minds work. Of course, there is nothing wrong with morality, but the point of spiritual practice, according to the vajrayana teachings, is to go beyond all our concepts, including those of morality. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

"If you engage in no practice of pure Dharma at all for the sake of lasting happiness but strive your entire life merely to eliminate your suffering and attain happiness, then you are like an animal despite your fortunate rebirth since animals do the same." Je Tsongkhapa

"Faith is the foremost vehicle leading to definite release. For that reason the intelligent rely on the pursuit of faith. In those lacking faith, virtuous phenomena do not arise, just as in seeds burnt by fire, no green sprout can germinate." Daśadharmakasūtra

"Say that someone demolishes all the stūpas found here in Jambudvīpa; the bad actions of someone who abandons the sūtras are far more grave. Even if someone murders as many arhats as there are grains of sand in the Ganges, the bad actions of someone who abandons the sūtras are far more grave." Samādhirājasūtra

"Vision is mind. Mind is empty. Emptiness is clear light. Clear light is union. Union is great bliss." Dawa Gyaltsen

The Profound Inner Principles by Rangjung Dorje, the Third Karmapa Chapter 1: Causes & Conditions The cause is beginningless mind-itself. Although neither limited nor partial, this [mind] displays freely: it is empty in essence yet clear in nature, and its manifestations appear unimpededly as anything at all. This [mind] is itself ignorant of itself and is stirred by the motions of formative mentation, just as water is by waves. Referents and perceivers appear as two: [mind] itself projects to itself and perceives that. Because there are appearing aspects—mentation moving outward—the consciousnesses that perceive objects as referents arise. Feelings arise from embracing or rejecting [objects]. Discriminations are the apprehension of those [objects’] characteristics. Formative processes label the appearances of objects as other, and through fixating [upon them], the skandha of forms is established. “The causes are the five dhâtus and consciousness as the sixth” is stated as a convention by conceptual [mind]. The âlaya, in which such latent tendencies are stored, is called the causal condition. The dominant conditions are the sense faculties—the visual and the others—which appear as intermediaries. The object conditions are what is cognized, that is, what appear as objects: forms and so forth. What are called “immediate conditions” are immediate to whatever has [just] ceased, including the sixth mentation. Thus it is that the phenomena of samsara and nirvana appear because of dependently originated causes and conditions. Craving and grasping form a link, producing existence. [The beings in] the formless, form, and desire realms apprehend the characteristics of objects to lesser, middling, or greater degrees, respectively. All [realms are created] by thoughts of adopting or rejecting: the conditions of the three types of formative forces—virtuous, unvirtuous, or unspecified—give rise to results of happiness, suffering, and absorption, [all of which] involve mental afflictions. That is the phase of impure mind-itself. Those who know such stains to be adventitious and purify them using the methods are said by the Victor to be “those on the path.” To be stainless and purified is to be buddha. Thus all beings are buddhas.