Right Action

Use your own hands,
your own eyes,
your own sincerity.

Dogen

Silence

Silence originates authentic speech.
Stillness is the ever-present origin of understanding.

Dharma Teacher

Peace and reconciliation

The practice of peace and reconciliation
is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.

Master Thich Nhat Hanh

Karma

Live in peace with Karma
Not with Ego.

When you live with Karma
Your life is in peace.

Des boo ngoh

To work with impermanence

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.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Theory and reality

There are those who look on death with a naive, thoughtless cheerfulness,
thinking that for some unknown reason death will work out all right for them,
and that it is nothing to worry about.

When I think of them, I am reminded of what one Tibetan master says:

“People often make the mistake of being frivolous about death and think,
‘Oh well, death happens to everybody. It’s not a big deal, it’s natural. I’ll be fine.’”

That’s a nice theory until one is dying.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Fear of unknown

People have a hard time
letting go of their suffering.

Out of a fear of the unknown,
they prefer suffering, that is familiar.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Being Peace

Smiling is very important.
If we are not able to smile,
then the world will not have peace.

It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles
that we can bring about peace.

It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing,
and being peace that we can make peace.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Suffering ends

If you can practice and find happiness
at the end of suffering,

you can find happiness too
when life ends.

Desmond Chong

Emptiness

In order to have no suffering,
you need to realize emptiness (sunyata),
the more you know yourself
you closer you are to emptiness.

When you know
you have no-self
then you will realize emptiness.

When you know no-self
you know everything
including emptiness.

Des Boo-ngoh

Unity, Presence and Trasformation

Keep to unity with shifting.

With constant presence,
Whether active or still,
The student can see the
Buddha nature clearly.

Tao-hsin (580-651)

It is not that dificult

Dying is not that difficult
When you accept death
As a part of living.

Death is not separate from life.

Des Boo-ngoh

Necessary awareness

To shed light of mindfulness on all things,
this is the point of departure.

The ancient Zen Masters used to say,

“If we live in forgetfulness,
we die in a dream”.

Master Thich Nhat Hanh

Teachings about Meditation - 3

To relax means to be spacious and to relax the mind of its tensions.
More deeply, you relax into the true nature of your mind, the state of Rigpa.

It is like pouring a handful of sand onto a hot surface, and each grain settles of its own accord.
This is how you relax into your true nature, letting all thoughts and emotions naturally subside
and dissolve into the state of the nature of mind.

Sogyal Rinpoche – (End)

Teachings about Meditation - 2

To release means to release the mind from its prison of grasping,
since you recognize that all pain and fear and distress arise from the craving of the grasping mind.

On a deeper level, the realization and confidence that arise from your growing understanding of the nature of mind
inspire the profound and natural generosity that enables you to release all grasping from your heart,
letting it free itself to melt away in the inspiration of meditation.

Sogyal Rinpoche – (To be continued)

Teachings about Meditation - 1

When I teach meditation, I often begin by saying:
“Bring your mind home. And release. And relax.”

To bring your mind home means to bring the mind into the state of Calm Abiding through the practice of mindfulness.
In its deepest sense, to bring your mind home is to turn your mind inward and rest in the nature of mind.

This itself is the highest meditation.

Sogyal Rinpoche – (To be continued)

True Buddhism

It's not just talking;
It's not just learning;
It's not just thinking and reasoning it out.

To be a true Buddhist
Is to do Buddhism.

Desmond Chong

Splendor of the virtues

Sariputra, this buddha-field is always thus pure,
but the Tathagata makes it appear to be spoiled by many faults,
in order to bring about the maturity of the inferior living beings.

For example, Sariputra, the gods of the Trayastrimsa heaven all take their food from a single precious vessel,
yet the nectar which nourishes each one differs according to the differences of the merits each has accumulated.

Just so, Sariputra, living beings born in the same buddha-field
see the splendor of the virtues of the buddha-fields of the Buddhas according to their own degrees of purity.

Vimalakirti Nirdesa sutra I

Wisdom of compassion

To realize what I call the wisdom of compassion is to see with complete clarity its benefits,
as well as the damage that its opposite has done to us.

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

When am I a Buddhist?

I am a Buddhist
when I overcome lethargy
and laziness in practice.

I am a Buddhist
when I am open-minded.

I am a Buddhist what I think I am.

Desmond Chiong

When am I a Buddhist?

I am a Buddhist
when I care for others.

I am a Buddhist
when I am humble.

I am a Buddhist
when I attempt to avoid
the same mistake.

Desmond Chiong

When am I a Buddhist?

I am a Buddhist
when I associate with the wise.

I am a Buddhist
when I feel grateful.

I am a Buddhist
when I respect people
who deserve respect.

Desmond Chiong

When am I a Buddhist?

I am a Buddhist
when I forgive.

I am a Buddhist
when I am calm.

I am a Buddhist
when I focus my mind.

Desmond Chiong