Every man…

Every man wants to be happy, but in order to be so, he needs first to understand what happiness is.

~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Like a Shooting Star…

Like a shooting star, a mirage, a flame,

A magic trick, a dewdrop, a water bubble,

Like a dream, lightning, or a cloud –

Consider all things thus.  ~ Buddha

Everything in life….

Everything in life comes to as a teacher.

Pay attention.

Learn quickly.

~ Old Cherokee woman to her grandson

Grasping

The outer world in all its variety and our inner world of thoughts and emotions are not as they seem.

All phenomena appear to exist objectively, but their true mode of existence is like a dream: apparent yet insubstantial.

The experience of emptiness is not found outside of the world of ordinary appearance, as many people mistakenly assume. In truth, we experience emptiness when the mind is free of grasping at appearance.

-Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, “The Theater of Reflection” (Thank you Martie for this great thought for today!)

Awakening from the Illusion

Buddhism is really about awakening from the illusion about ourselves and the world, and realizing reality – who we are and what is real and how things are interconnected through karma and causation and so on. In a Dzogchen text, it says, “From the beginning, we are all Buddhas by nature, we only have to realize that fact.” So in Dzogchen the whole practice of what we call the view, meditation, and action is about awakening to – not just our momentary personality – “self” with a small s – but our true Buddha nature, our original nature.

-Lama Surya Das, “Old Wine, New Bottles” (Tricycle Interview)