Witness

Sometimes the mountain

is hidden from me in veils

of cloud, sometimes

I am hidden from the mountain

in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,

when I forget or refuse to go

down to the shore or a few yards

up the road, on a clear day,

to reconfirm

that witnessing presence.

Denise Levertov

What need have I for such a great evil spirit?

When we have really grasped the law of karma in all its stark power and complex reverberations over many, many lifetimes, and seen just how our self-grasping and self-cherishing, life after life, have woven us repeatedly into a net of ignorance that seems only to be ensnaring us more and more tightly; when we have really understood the dangerous and doomed nature of the self-grasping mind’s enterprise; when we have really pursued its operations into their most subtle hiding places; when we have really understood just how our whole ordinary mind and actions are defined, narrowed and darkened by it, how almost impossible it makes it for us to uncover the heart of unconditional love, and how it has blocked in us all sources of real love and real compassion, then there comes a moment when we understand, with extreme and poignant clarity, what Shantideva said:

If all the harms
Fears and sufferings in the world
Arise from self-grasping,
What need have I for such a great evil spirit?

And then a resolution is born in us to destroy that evil spirit, our greatest enemy. With that evil spirit dead, the cause of all our suffering will be removed, and our true nature, in all its spaciousness and dynamic generosity, will shine out.

- Sogyal Rinpoche

Egolessness

It is important to remember always that the principle of egolessness does not mean that there was an ego in the first place but the Buddhists did away with it. On the contrary, it means there was never any ego at all to begin with. To realize this is called “egolessness.”

- Sogyal Rinpoche

Enlightenment is real

Enlightenment is real; and each of us, whoever we are, can in the right circumstances and with the right training realize the nature of mind and so know in us what is deathless and eternally pure. This is the promise of all the great mystical traditions of the world, and it has been fulfilled and is being fulfilled in countless thousands of human lives.

The wonder of this promise is that it is something not exotic, not fantastic, not for an elite, but for all of humanity; and when we realize it, the masters tell us, it is unexpectedly ordinary.

Spiritual truth is not something elaborate and esoteric, it is in fact profound common sense. When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don’t actually “become” a buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being.

- Sogya Rinpoche

Freedom is ...

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

-Sartre

The moment of death is a tremendous opportunity

The moment of death is a tremendous opportunity, if we understand clearly what is happening and have prepared well for it in life. For at the actual moment of death, the thinking ego-mind dies into the essence, and in this truth, enlightenment takes place. If we familiarize ourselves with the true nature of mind through practice while we are alive, we become more prepared for when it reveals itself spontaneously at the moment of death. Recognition then follows as naturally as a child running into its mother’s lap. Remaining in that state, we are liberated.

- Sogyal Rinpoche