The Essence of Everything

“When devotion, faith, and the belief in the experience of being able to transform our mind by the skillful means of the tathagatas become a reality, it is not even a matter of faith any more. It is our experience, our life, and our own truth at that point. Confusion simply falls away.

I myself have trouble tolerating emotional pain, but I increasingly see how we must welcome our pain in order to become strong, stable, and capable of establishing ourselves as practitioners. We need to summon our courage to tolerate more pain in many different ways…

Getting to know your own pain intimately can make you revolt against the root cause that created the pain in the first place… than inspire yourself to be patient in order to work with it further…

When you are spacious with your own tendencies and don’t have unrealistic expectations for yourself – you will find a greater sense of peace and contentment within yourself right there and then, even though you may still have a lot of bad habits…

People need the taste of peace, of joy, of freedom, of power, of a clear mind, of a contented mind, of being deeply in harmony with one’s mind, in order to sustain themselves on the path… The positive side has to get stronger, edging out the negative side, rather than completely rejecting the negative side or not even knowing what it is.

This whole dualistic tendency is the biggest problem of a practitioner’s life. It’s not because the teachings are taught in that way or that the path is that way, but rather because it’s how we relate to everything in the world. We relate in a dualistic way, so that when we come to the path, when we come to the Dharma, relate to our obscurations in a negative way and get aggressive with ourselves.

In actuality, the potential is very beautiful. It’s very beautiful in that you can have room for it all. You can actually have a dance with the habits, and you can actually slowly and firmly get ahead of your habits, outsmart your habits. In order to outsmart your habits, you need to know your habits. When you are in a blind state, the tricks played on you by your habits and weaknesses can get you. But if you are not blind, they have no way to hook you. If you don’t study those blind spots and do research on them, it’s very difficult to outsmart your habits. Sometimes a big blessing can come, and then all of a sudden you get some kind of breakthrough. Usually, though, it’s very hard to get some kind of leverage with your habits. That’s why it’s good to treat our most negative and bothersome habits as a subject of study and research.”

~ Dzigar Kontrul Rinpoche, Uncommon Happiness – The Path of the Compassionate Warrior
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche grew up in a monastic environment and received extensive training in all aspects of Buddhist doctrine. In particular, he received the teachings of the Nyingma lineage, especially those of the Longchen Nyingtik, from his root teacher, His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. His most well-known student in the Western world is Pema Chödrön, who took him as her primary teacher in 1994, years after the death of her root guru, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche is also an abstract expressionist painter. Kongtrul Rinpoche views creativity as "something very large - the essence of everything".