To know that these are people who for a moment, in glory, in light, were true warriors, and you had the chance to associate with them, to live with them, to share with them, words and moments of power – this is the nature of spiritual study.
If we don’t get violent with ourselves, castigate ourselves, ostracize ourselves and excommunicate ourselves because we didn’t live up to the standards we set down for ourselves, then maybe we don’t have to do that with other people.
Your mantrum is the awareness of the dream – to enjoy and appreciate and have gratitude for all; neither to condemn nor to liberate, but to observe.
You need to search your awareness and consider the limitless possibilities of existence in all things and not be so narrow-minded in your self-discovery.
Perhaps you’re not the next Buddha. Perhaps you’re not the Maitreya. Perhaps that’s not your job in this incarnation. Perhaps you have to enjoy life and learn about life through whatever way that you find yourself going.
If you are going to set out to develop mystical powers to impress your friends and do other things to your enemies, the difficulty with it is that you will not be moving towards enlightenment.
People want to will their self realization. They want to know what the right thing to do all the time is. There is no right thing. There’s no code. There are certain basic recommendations.
Do not feel that you are destined to enlightenment in this life. You have no idea. This is an illusion of selfhood. It’s gross ignorance and egotism.
Do not feel that you are destined not to make that final liberation in this life. This is egotism in a reverse form. Don’t be concerned one way or the other.
The way you succeed at all this stuff is by stopping trying to succeed and just working very hard without thinking about it, just trusting, completely. It’s that faith that creates the bridge on which you walk across to eternity.
Self-hate doesn’t create enlightenment. It just causes you to not enjoy the current moment.
As Buddhist monks, our task is to bring ourselves resolutely more and more into light, to forgive and forget, to forget those who create problems for us because to remember them is only to keep problems is mind.
Put the mind in alignment with the ten thousand radiances of enlightenment and experience them in various gradations forever. That’s the total purpose of a monk.
Are you still carrying everyone who’s insulted you, injured you or interfered with you? That’s a lot of weight. I’d let it go, personally, and just move on and forget. Be in the moment. Don’t even notice.
Don’t care what anybody says about enlightenment, except the enlightened and those who seek it.
As a monk you have a responsibility to meditate many hours a day. Not just to sit there but to think of the ten thousand radiances.
A Buddhist monk has a responsibility first and foremost to themselves, and that’s to find the truth each day in every part of their life.
Our sense of being worthwhile, our sense of being good, our sense of being anything must go – Final clearance sale.
It’s considered very, very bad karma, if I can cut to the chase, to take power from a teacher and not use it for something very positive.
We seek to unify ourselves with the endless light of truth, of God, of nirvana. We recognize the infinite playing through all beings and all forms, but we only have to concern ourselves with ourselves.