Tag: heart

Remember

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Joy is the happiness

that doesn’t depend on what happens

David Steindl-Rast

The mind’s natural state

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Silent illumination is the realization of … wakefulness, still­ness and awareness… all of which are different ways to describe mind’s natural state. Experiencing it for the first time is like suddenly dropping a thousand pounds from your shoulders – the heavy burdens of self-attachment, vexations, and habitual tendencies. Self-attachment, vexations, and habitual ten­dencies run deep. So practitioners must work hard to experience enlightenment again and again until they can simply rest in mind’s natural state. The key is to practice diligently but seek no results.

Guo Gu, You Are Already Enlightened

Deep down, already there

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Some traditions, East and West, hold that everyone, deep down, has an original perfect quality, a clear or luminous, natural, true state and potential. This gets covered over by the constructions and labels which we adopt as we conform to our environment, or as we change ourselves in response to people around us or the circumstances of our lives.

In some Buddhist traditions, we simply should get in touch with our already present, buddha-nature, underneath all our daily agitations. 

All beings are full with buddha-nature.

It is only due to their agitations that they do not know or perceive it.

Thus, diligently work with those experiences which lead you to eradicate getting agitated.


Mahaparinirvana Sutra, Mahayana Buddhist sutra, c 2nd Century CE

The mind’s potential

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There are many wrong tracks in society, but they are all basically the same: They all take us outside of ourselves to satisfy our inner needs.
Whether they take us toward material goods or towards social relationships and emotional co-dependence, they all ignore the mind’s own potential to provide us with happiness and peace

Dzigar Kongtrul, It’s Up to You

Expect the circus

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The glorious, colorful life comes to those who expect it, dream it. Remember how grand life was when the circus or the fair was imminent? Colors changed. More dramatic than the change of seasons was the change of attitudes.

So expect the circus, always.

Be the circus.

Tennessee Williams

Sunday Quote: Consider this

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Think of the wren

and how little flesh is needed to make a song

Galway Kinnell, Why Regret?