Sick of It

“Ordinary enjoyments are pleasurable in the beginning, but as time goes on, they become an increasing source of torment, If you wrap a strip of wet leather around your wrist, it is fine at first, but as the leather dries and shrinks, it tightens painfully. What a relief it is to cut it away with a knife!...

Once you have understood the union of emptiness and the dependent arising of phenomena, you will see clearly how deluded and deceiving the ways of the world really are, and, like an old man forced to play children's games, you will find them very tiresome. When you realized the utter foolishness of spending your life attached to friends and scheming to subdue your enemies and competitors, you will find it tedious.

Once you have been struck by the pointlessness of letting yourself be forever influenced and conditioned by your habitual tendencies, you will become sick of it... That will inspire you to strive towards liberation — and by striving for it, you will attain it. Samsara will never just disappear on its own. You have to want to get rid of it actively yourself.

Enlightenment will be ours when we are able to care for others as much as we now care for ourselves, and ignore ourselves to the same extent that we now ignore others.

The supreme sign of a great practitioner is not that he sprouts a halo, has extraordinarily auspicious dreams, experiences bliss continuously, or can foresee our miserable futures. The supreme sign is that he no longer has any interest in material gain, fame, the respect of others, or being the center of attention.

The more you are preoccupied by your own physical aging, the more anxious you will become. Do not worry so much about your physical appearance. Concentrate, rather, on not wasting your life. Practise the Dharma. The more you engage in it, the more your satisfaction will grow.

You may look very impressive, with your eyes constantly gazing into the sky like a great meditator, declaring, “My view is that of the Great Perfection”—but if you lack inner stability, you will stumble over the first obstacle in your way. As it is said, “The sign of being wise is self-control; and the sign of a mature spiritual experience is the absence of conflicting emotions.” This means that to the same degree that one becomes wise and learned, one also becomes serene, peaceful, and subdued—not a reckless person bursting with pride and arrogance. However much your practice progresses year after year, you will have no concern with comfort and discomfort; you’ll have no pride at all. You will be always at peace, untroubled by outer events, with a humble mind, beyond hopes and doubts and indifferent to the eight worldly concerns: gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and obscurity. (PI)

To meet someone who really hurts you is to meet a rare and precious treasure. Hold that person in high esteem, and make full use of the opportunity to eradicate your defects and make progress on the path. If you cannot yet feel love and compassion for those who treat you badly, it is a sign that your mind has not been fully transformed and that you need to keep working on it with increased application.

Understand this: it is more important to take to heart the key instructions than to receive a great many teachings.

When you feel you are being harmed by someone, remember that the harm that person may be inflicting on you (or someone dear to you) is the direct result of yourself having harmed others in the past. Reflect that this person is so overpowered by delusion that he or she is as if possessed, and cannot resist harming you. As a result of this harm, he or she will have to suffer in samsara's lower realms ia a future life. When you think how terrible that will be, you will feel only sadness and pity rather than anger.

Experiences are like mist: they will fade away. Practitioners who spend their time practicing in seclusion are certain to have many different experiences, but these experiences are very unreliable. As it is said, experiences are like rainbows, but the great meditator who runs after them like a child will be deceived. We may occasionally have flashes of clairvoyance, seeing things we cannot ordinarily know. We may have signs of accomplishment, or predictions from the deity or the dakinis. But such experiences in most cases give rise to hope and expectation. They are none other than the tricks of demons: they simply cause obstacles. When true realization dawns in one’s mind, it is like the king of mountains, Mount Meru, which no wind can shake.

It is always beneficial to be near a spiritual teacher. These masters are like gardens or medicinal plants, sanctuaries of wisdom. In the presence of a realized master, you will rapidly attain enlightenment. In the presence of an erudite scholar, you will acquire great knowledge. In the presence of a great meditator, spiritual experience will dawn in your mind. In the presence of a bodhisattva, your compassion will expand, just as an ordinary log placed next to a log of sandalwood becomes saturated, little by little, with its fragrance.

Indeed, adversaries and people who try to harm you can be powerful sources of help on the bodhisattva path. By bringing about situations which would normally trigger your anger or hatred, they give you the precious opportunity to train in transforming those negative emotions with patience. On the path, such people will do you far more good than any well-disposed friend.

A hidden yogi is a practitioner who does not mix with other people and become involved in worldly activities, and who seeks neither fame nor followers. He bums with an irresistible longing for spiritual practice and has seized the root of Dharma- the determination to be free from Samsara. Now, you might think: "If I renounce all worldly activity now, what will happen to me later? How am I going to find food, lodging, and all the rest of it?" But such deluded hesitations and anxieties could, if you allow them, dominate the rest of your life, pulling the net of Samsara tighter and tighter. As long as these inveterate tendencies continue, so will suffering.

You will never be a good Dharma practitioner until you are truly sick of ordinary life and know how to be satisfied with whatever you have. (THT)

Unless you have made a clear decision to turn your back on samsara, then however many prayers you recite, however much you meditate, however many years you remain in retreat, it will all be in vain. You may have a long life, but it will be without essence. You may accumulate great wealth, but it will be meaningless. The only thing that is really worth doing is to get steadily closer to enlightenment and further away from samsara. Think about it carefully.

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, you probably 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 wearing 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.

Whatever meditation or reflection you have done, it will never be wasted. The benefit it brings will be present in your mindstream at the time of your death, and will help you be reborn in a place where the Dharma flourishes, near an authentic spiritual teacher. Life after life, you will evolve from a mediocre into an average practitioner into an excellent one. The essence of learning is reflection, and the essence of reflection is meditation. As you go deeper into the meaning of the teachings, the wondrous qualities of the Dharma will become ever clearer, like the sun appearing ever brighter the higher you fly.

The sign that you have fully assimilated your learning of the Dharma is that you become peaceful by nature. The sign that you have assimilated your meditation is that you are free of obscuring emotions. As learning leads to reflection and reflection transforms into meditation, your eagerness for the deluded activities of this life will relax, and you will yearn for the Dharma instead.

Is this ego a substance, a thing? Is it inside or outside? When we think that someone has done some- thing to hurt us and anger arises, we should ask ourselves whether the anger is part of the enemy's makeup or whether it is in ourselves.

The only way to put an end to samsara is to practice the dharma. The dharma is offered to you, ready to be used. Therefore, it is up to you whether or not you practice it; the teacher cannot practice it for you. If you practice with full dedication, you can achieve liberation in the span of this present life; if not, you can prepare the ground for achieving it within a few lifetimes, or at least you will acquire some affinity for the dharma that will eventually lead you along the path. (…) Those who are strongly motivated to practice the dharma do not really need to receive a lot of instructions, just the essential ones. In this present dark age, there is no time for extensive learning such as studying the entire Tripitaka and the numerous commentaries upon it. Anyway, people nowadays lack the necessary intelligence and diligence for such study. Now is the time to practice the pith oral instructions of your guru, which are like butter churned from milk.

Throughout the day, put the teachings into practice. In the evening examine what you have done, said, and thought during the day. Whatever was positive, dedicate the merit to all beings and vow to improve on it the next day. Whatever was negative, confess and promise to repair it. In this way, the best practitioners progress from day to day, the middling practitioners from month to month, and the least capable from year to year.

The practitioner who has the greatest yearning devotion receives the greatest blessing. Even though rain falls evenly over the land, it is only where perfect seeds are properly cultivated and ready to sprout that a plant grows.”

~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was the archetype of the spiritual teacher. His inner journey led him to an extraordinary depth of knowledge and enabled him to be, for all who met him, a fountain of loving kindness, wisdom, and compassion. Rinpoche traveled throughout the Himalayas and the West, transmitting and explaining the teachings to his countless students. His books have been translated into many Western languages, and his inspiration is still strongly felt today.