I sometimes feel tremendous compassion and helplessness.
The dharma is the most precious thing in the world and we should put it at the center of our hearts and transform our whole lives into dharma practice. Otherwise, at the time of death, we will look back and say, now what was all that about? If we truly want to benefit others and ourselves, we have to do it. No excuses.
Most of the people I talk to are not going to go off and live in a cave. Why should they? So I talk about how people can stop separating dharma practice - going on retreats, going to dharma centers, hearing talks, reading books - from their ordinary life.
Realization is wonderful, but you have to expand it until there's not a single defilement left in the mind and the mind is completely open and spacious. Even in that condition, you still use the relative mind. You use them both.
For any practice to work, the mind which is meditating on the object must merge. Often they are facing each other. One has to become completely absorbed, then the transformation will occur.
There are wonderful beings in this world.
I have made a vow to attain Enlightenment in the female form - no matter how many lifetimes it takes.
We shouldn't be too naïve, or taken in by charisma.
The power of thought is extremely powerful.
One of the beauties of the Buddhadharma is there are so many approaches, and not everything is right for everybody.
You see people swimming, and you think, oh, how wonderful to swim. But most people stand on the edge swaying back and forth, afraid to jump. They don't think they can swim.
It's important to lighten up a bit!
Even if one isn't a committed Buddhist, it just helps us become better human beings.
To me the special quality (which of course many men have as well) is first of all a sharpness, a clarityIt cuts through - especially intellectual ossification. Itgets to the point. To me the dakini principle stands for the intuitive force.
Most religions have always appreciated the extreme power of concentrated thought directed toward the benefit of others, especially when that person is practicing in solitude. That's why they have contemplative orders.
The point with Buddhism is that it doesn't just tell you to be good, it tells you how. It doesn't just say, "Don't be angry," it shows us the methods to help us not to be angry. It gives techniques for everything that it advises us to cultivate, and all the negative qualities we need to overcome and transform.
Because we're trying, because we want, it's very hard to get.
I think the problem with Western students is they're very ambitious.
To become effortless takes a lot of effort. It's good to compare it to learning an instrument or learning a sport.
We live in a society which is heading in one direction, so it's good to have at least a few friends who share the same values and can encourage us and help us to remember that we're not alone or peculiar, but that what we're doing is a very valid way of life. This will encourage us to put the Dharma at the centre of our life and not the periphery, to use our daily life as our Dharma practice.
People get very deep experiences and they think they're enlightened. That's not enlightenment, that's just some realization.
The Buddha always emphased the important of good friends.
Everyone should not be ordained, but for those who really feel that the only thing that matters in this world is the Dharma, then it is a logical step to adopt a form of life that automatically precludes worldly distractions.
Why do some people, when they want to practice, keep coming against problems and difficulties, and obstacles - inner obstacles and outer obstacles? It's because of the lack of merit.
Just entering into the dharma and taking refuge and bodhisattva vows is a tremendous amount of merit, but we need more and more and more.
