Of these two attitudes toward death, one views death as something to scurry away from and the other as something that will just take care of itself. How far they both are from understanding death's true significance! Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 361-363 --- modern society is largely a spiritual desert where the majority imagine that this life is all that there is. Without any real or authentic faith in an afterlife, most people live lives deprived of any ultimate meaning. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 366-368 --- Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 445-446 --- If we refuse to accept death now, while we are still alive, we will pay dearly throughout our lives, at the moment of death, and thereafter. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 522-523 --- A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 544-545 --- The more we try to run away from that fear, the more monstrous it becomes. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 550-550 --- Without our familiar props, we are faced with just our- selves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 567-569 --- Just look at your mind for a few minutes. You will see that it is like a flea, constantly hopping to and fro. You will see that thoughts arise without any rea- IMPERMANENCE 17 son, without any connection. Swept along by the chaos of every moment, we are the victims of the fickleness of our mind. If this is the only state of consciousness we are familiar with, then to rely on our minds at the moment of death is an absurd gamble. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 578-582 --- His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present. [[Anxiety]] Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 585-586 --- Despite all our chatter about being practical, to be practical in the West means to be ignorandy and often selfishly short-sighted. Our myopic focus on this life, and this life only, is the great decep- tion, the source of the modern world's bleak and destructive materialism. No one talks about death and no one talks about the afterlife, because people are made to believe that such talk will only thwart our so-called "progress" in the world. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 612-616 --- Planning for the future is like going fishing in a dry gulch; Nothing ever works out as you wanted, so give up all your schemes and ambitions. If you have got to think about something— Make it the uncertainty of the hour of your death. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 689-692 --- It is important to reflect calmly, again and again, that death is real, and comes without warning. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 727-728 --- to simplify our lives. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 746-746 --- how much have we really understood about life and death? Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 749-750 --- What could be more unpredictable than our thoughts and emotions: do you have any idea what you are going to think or feel next? Our mind, in fact, is as empty, as impermanent, and as transient as a dream. Look at a thought: It comes, it stays, and it goes. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 832-835 --- you must reflect continually on this: There is only one law in the universe that never changes— that all things change, and that all things are impermanent. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 867-869 --- This is what we mean when we say things are empty, that they have no independent existence. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1087-1088 --- each so-called "identity" is com- posed of a swirl of different influences. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1093-1094 --- Always recognize the dreamlike qualities of life and reduce attach- ment and aversion. Practice good-heartedness toward all beings. Be loving and compassionate, no matter what others do to you. What they will do will not matter so much when you see it as a dream. The trick is to have positive intention during the dream. This is the essential point. This is true spirituality10 Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1115-1119 --- True spirituality also is to be aware that if we are interde- pendent with everything and everyone else, even our smallest, least significant thought, word, and action have real conse- quences throughout the universe. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1119-1121 --- Throw a pebble into a pond. It sends a shiver across the surface of the water. Ripples merge into one another and create new ones. Everything is inextrica- bly interrelated: We come to realize we are responsible for everything we do, say, or think, responsible in fact for our- selves, everyone and everything else, and the entire universe. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1121-1124 --- Our minds have two positions: looking out and looking in. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1422-1422 --- It's interesting that the word for "Bud- dhist" in Tibetan is nangpa. It means "inside-er": someone who seeks the truth not outside, but within the nature of mind. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1426-1427 --- Underlying our whole outlook is a neurotic conviction of our own limitations. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1456-1457 --- The irony is that it is our so-called ordinary world that is extraordinary, a fantastic, elaborate hallucination of the deluded vision of samsara. It is this "extraordinary" vision that blinds us to the "ordinary," natural, inherent nature of mind. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1482-1484 --- Because in our culture we overvalue the intellect, we imag- ine that to become enlightened demands extraordinary intelli- gence. In fact many kinds of cleverness are just further obscurations. There is a Tibetan saying that goes, "If you are too clever, you could miss the point entirely." Patrul Rinpoche said: "The logical mind seems interesting, but it is the seed of delusion." People can become obsessed with their own theo- ries and miss the point of everything. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1491-1496 --- The first step is the practice of meditation. It is meditation that slowly purifies the ordinary mind, unmasking and exhausting its habits and illusions, so that we can, at the right moment, recognize who we really are. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1514-1516 --- What the Buddha saw was that ignorance of our true nature is the root of all the torment of samsara, Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1537-1538 --- and the root of ignorance itself is our mind's habitual tendency to distrac- tion. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1538-1539 --- we are already perfectly trained by and for samsara, trained to get jealous, trained to grasp, trained to be anxious and sad and desperate and greedy, trained to react angrily to whatever provokes us. We are trained, in fact, to such an extent that these negative emotions rise spontaneously, with- out our even trying to generate them. So everything is a ques- tion of training and the power of habit. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1568-1572 --- Good in the Beginning springs from the awareness that we Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1610-1611 --- Good in the Middle is the frame of mind with which we enter into the heart of the practice, one inspired by the realiza- tion of the nature of mind, from which arises an attitude of nongrasping, free of any conceptual reference whatsoever, and an awareness that all things are inherently "empty," illusory, and dreamlike. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1620-1623 --- Only when we have removed the harm in our- selves do we become truly useful to others. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1661-1662 --- However, for meditation to happen, calm and auspicious conditions have to be created. Before we have mastery over our mind, we need first to calm its environment. At the moment, mind is like a candle flame: unstable, flickering, con- stantly changing, fanned by the violent winds of our thoughts and emotions. The flame will only burn steadily when we can calm the air around it; so we can only begin to glimpse and rest in the nature of mind when we have stilled the turbulence of our thoughts and emotions. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1729-1734 --- The important thing is to do what- ever helps you the most and whatever is appropriate for your mood. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1938-1939 --- When you meditate there should be no effort to control and no attempt to be peaceful. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1950-1951 --- Remaining in nowness and stillness is an excellent accomplishment, but to return to the example of the glass of muddy water—if you keep it still, the dirt will settle and it will become clear, and yet the dirt will still be there, deep down. One day if you stir it, the dirt will rise again. As long as you cultivate stillness, you may enjoy peace, but whenever your mind is a little bit dis- turbed, deluded thoughts will set in again. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1963-1967 --- "How did you get the best sound out of your vina? Was it when the strings were very tight or when they were very loose?" "Neither. When they had just the right tension, neither too taut nor too slack." Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 1992-1994 --- Sometimes people think that when they meditate there should be no thoughts and emotions at all; and when thoughts and emotions do arise, they become annoyed and exasperated with themselves and think they have failed. Noth- ing could be further from the truth. There is a Tibetan saying: "It's a tall order to ask for meat without bones, and tea with- out leaves." So long as you have a mind, there will be thoughts and emotions. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2009-2013 --- So have a spacious, open, and compassionate attitude toward your thoughts and emotions, because in fact your thoughts are your family, the family of your mind. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2023-2025 --- Dudjom Rinpoche used to say: "Be like an old wise man, watching a child play." Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2025-2026 --- When things are going well, you have got to be especially careful and mindful so that you don't become complacent or overconfident. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2074-2076 --- The real glory of meditation lies not in any method but in its continual living experience of presence, in its bliss, clarity, peace, and, most important of all, complete absence of grasp- ing. The diminishing of grasping in yourself is a sign that you are becoming freer of yourself. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2092-2094 --- I always tell my students not to come out of meditation too quickly: allow a period of some minutes for the peace of the practice of meditation to infiltrate your life. As my master Dudjom Rinpoche said: "Don't jump up and rush off, but mingle your mindfulness with everyday life. Be like a man who's fractured his skull, always careful in case someone will touch him." Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2137-2141 --- like the Zen story in which the disciple asked his master: "Master, how do you put enlightenment into action? How do you practice it in everyday life?" "By eating and by sleeping," replied the master. "But Master, everybody sleeps and everybody eats." "But not everybody eats when they eat, and not everybody sleeps when they sleep." From this comes the famous Zen saying, "When I eat, I eat; when I sleep, I sleep." To eat when you eat and sleep when you sleep means to be completely present in all your actions, with none of the distractions of ego to stop your being there. This is integra- tion. And if you really wish to achieve this, what you need to do is not just practice as if it were an occasional medicine or therapy, but as if it were your daily sustenance or food. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2155-2163 --- Everything can be used as an invitation to meditation. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2199-2199 --- Be alert for any sign of beauty or grace. Offer up every joy, be awake at all moments to "the news that is always arriving out of silence."9 Slowly you will become a master of your own bliss, a chemist of your own joy, with all sorts of remedies always at hand to elevate, cheer, illuminate, and inspire your every breath and movement. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2202-2205 --- Buddhism we do not believe in an independent and unchanging entity like a soul or ego that survives the death of the body. What provides the continuity between lives is not an entity, we believe, but the ultimately subtlest level of con- sciousness. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2434-2437 --- is because of our actions in one life, pure or impure, that we are linked with another life, and we are not free from their results. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2469-2470 --- It means that whatever we do, with our body, speech, or mind, will have a corresponding result. Each action, even the smallest, is preg- nant with its consequences. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2482-2484 Notes: 1) butterfly effect --- Its power will never disap- pear, until it is ripened. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2490-2490 --- And it is important never to forget that the effect of our actions depends entirely upon the intention or motivation behind them, and not upon their scale. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2507-2509 --- So it is our motivation, good or bad, that determines the fruit of our actions. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2530-2531 --- Wise selfish people think of others, help others as much as they can, and the result is that they too receive benefit.17 Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2540-2541 --- We must never forget that it is through our actions, words, and thoughts that we have a choice. And if we choose we can put an end to suffering and the causes of suffering, and help our true potential, our buddha nature, to awaken in us. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 2624-2626 --- the very suffering that pervades this human realm is itself the spur to spiritual transformation. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 3009-3009 --- Pain, grief, loss, and ceaseless frustration of every kind are there for a real and dramatic purpose: to wake us up, to enable and almost to force us to break out of the cycle of samsara and so release our imprisoned splendor. Unknown, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (7Summits), loc. 3010-3012 ---