"First, if you want to practice the teachings, but have not done so, you have not yet made a deep enough commitment. With the recklessness of a lunatic, you must make a radical decision: to listen to the advice of a qualified spiritual master and to no one else.

"Having made this deep commitment, begin the preliminary practices, using the “four thoughts that turn the mind to dharma” in order to tame your mind.

"Next, no matter what happens to you, good or bad, recognize that ordinary worldly preoccupations do not have the slightest meaning whatsoever, not even so much as a tiny seed of sesame.

"Until you are able to regard the ordinary affairs of samsara with a kind of natural revulsion—like someone sick with hepatitis served a pile of greasy food—you are likely to turn into a hyperactive renunciant, like an ox with its tail caught in a door.

"If you’re motivated to give up ordinary activities just from a fleeting impulse of renunciation, you’ll wind up a failed “realized yogi,” a jaded “great meditator,” like someone who wastes his time soaking hard, ruined boots in water, hoping someday they’ll soften again.

"Until you have completely come to understand the “four thoughts that turn the mind to dharma” and have created a real capacity to renounce ordinary life, don’t even bother mouthing mantras and giving up ordinary activities to do practice. This is important.

"Conversely, once you begin to experience an unwavering weariness with samsara, an authentic sense of renunciation, immutable devotion and strong sense of self-confidence, you have taken the first step: adamantine freedom from the opinions of others.

"This is the time to distance yourself from friends and from enemies, to give up plans, to ignore everything that you were supposed to get done, unswayed by the opinions of your friends or partners. This is the time to turn a deaf ear to both your superiors and your subordinates. This is the time to decide, on your own, to take up the reins of your destiny and make your escape, like a wild animal caught in a trap, working to set itself free...

"...Also, unless you are propelled along the path by the life force of constant diligence and relentless perseverance, even though you are knowledgeable about the scriptures of the nine vehicles, this will not result in attaining buddhahood in a single lifetime.

"However, take confidence in knowing that, one day, merely by having heard the words the Three Jewels, you will attain the enlightened state."

— Patrul Rinpoche, Enlightened Vagabond

"Generally, in Buddhism, gods are considered not ultimate but temporary because gods themselves cannot give up a self. That is why Kunkhyen Rongzompa identifies eternalist gods as worldly deities.

"As long as there is a self, there are always passions, there is always karma, and there is always change. There is nothing absolute. There is no view of how to reach the fully enlightened state that is connected with eternalist gods, whose histories occur within different times and places.

"Whether time is brief, long-lasting, or many eons, it is a temporary appearance that belongs to beings, depending on beings’ habit or manifesting from Buddhas according to beings’ faculties.

"Even though time and place do not exist and are just conception, whoever has not realized the fully enlightened state believes in a reality of time and place.

"Buddhas have no time or place, but Buddhas manifest within time and place for the benefit of beings. They are called fully enlightened because there is nothing trapped in time. Buddhas’ inconceivable wisdom is forever abiding in unwavering stainless Dharmakaya, never remaining in the habit of a certain place.

"Buddha has purified self, so that is why Buddha is fully enlightened. Because eternalism does not give up the view of an existing self, whether a god is considered intermediate or supreme, there is still the cause of passions and karma, even though the way the appearances of gods arise seems positive according to history or an individual’s experience and excels beyond the appearances of ordinary human beings.

"Since self is not purified, self produces cause and effect. Whenever there is cause and effect, a possessor comes, and there is samsara no matter what aspect of gods arises.

"This is the basic Buddhist view about the characteristics of gods.

"The contrast between eternalist and Buddhist views of gods is comparable to the contrast between the Western geographical system, which from a Buddhist perspective only concerns one small part of the phenomena of this world, and the Buddhist geographical system, which is about all phenomena and is related to sentient beings according to time and place.

"In the Buddhist view, one cannot make anything certain and sure. It is actually not good to try to make any kind of doctrine into something certain and sure, because if something is thought to exist only in a definite way, its reliability will eventually fail.

"It is important not to compare eternalist gods, but to differentiate between the characteristics of wisdom, and then it will not be necessary to deny any gods’ doctrines, which are infinite. They have existed before, they exist now, and they will exist in the future because of beings’ phenomena, which are the general source of eternalist beliefs, and what arises is believed depending on beings’ time and place.

"The eternalist belief that a god is absolute is only conceptual within time and place. Even if one tries to determine what is absolute according to an eternalist view, whatever is found will be conditional, compounded, and temporary because it is conceptual. Even though there is belief in permanence, where does anything exist permanently? If something exists permanently, it cannot manifest anything because it is frozen, without mind, spirit, or wisdom.

"Even when considering absolute truth, by excessively concretizing absolute truth due to inflexibility, it will become diminishable and will not turn to a pivotal state or quality."

— Dungse Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, A Cascading Waterfall of Nectar, Shambhala Publications.

I have not written much here of late because I have very little I want to say. My time and thoughts are more and more spent on practice.

I have never wished for Telegram clout, and I only really started this channel to dialogue with my friends. I certainly have no desire to present my own ideas or project anymore.

Realising how little I know has created in me the firm determination to look inwards. As such, things like politics have become much less interesting to me.

However, for those who are politically minded, I think it is important to realise that we deserve everything we go through. There is not a single thing happening to our countries, or ourselves, that we did not create the causes for in the past.

It's your fault. You made this for yourself.

That is the inviolable Law of Karma manifesting through dependent origination.

When Shariputra asked Ashvajit what it was the Buddha taught, Ashvajit said:

ye dharmā hetu-prabhavā hetuṃ teṣāṃ tathāgato hy avadat
teṣāṃ ca yo nirodha evaṃ vādī mahāśramaṇaḥ

"All phenomena arise from causes, the Tathagata has taught these causes, and the means of their cessation, thus teaches the great ascetic."

This is so profound that it became a mantra used by all Buddhist schools to understand the essence of the Buddha's teaching.

Therefore, if you wish to put an end to the suffering of yourself, your family, nation and the world, you have no choice but to work on your own mind.

If you try to get retribution without cultivating universal love within yourself, you simply perpetuate the cycle of samsara. When you understand that all beings are seeking happiness, you can successfully forgive them for the horrific mistakes they make, and therefore overcome the delusion of inherent self that causes suffering for yourself and everyone around you.

To rise above the cycle is the only way to end it.

This is true for you, as well as everyone you wish to protect.

One of the best meditation instructions I have heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDWpuA08ues

YouTube

Meditation Instruction -How to meditate. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Shambhala

Chögyam Trungpa gives a general orientation to meditation in the Buddhist tradition and gives meditation instruction. This is essentially the same basic instruction that he gave throughout the time he was in the United States. It is also virtually identical…

The spiritual path relies on the teacher, there is no other way, but he relies on you to seek him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llYCveHkpdk&t=785s

YouTube

The Teacher. Guru - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Shambhala

"In relating with the teacher, your critical input and your surrendering work together at the same time. They're not working against each other. The more you get input from the teacher and the phenomenal world and the more you develop, at the same time the…

https://soundcloud.com/jasonmartineau/gymnopedie-1

SoundCloud

Gymnopédie #1

“Gymnopédie #1” by Erik Satie, using a tempered tuning devised by Robert Edward Grant entitled "Precise Temperament", at A=432Hz. The piece was composed in 1888.

Advice on preventing catastrophe in 2030

He is the teacher of all sentient beings.
He is the father of bodhisattvas.
He is the king of noble ones.
He is the guide of those who journey to the city of nirvana.
He possesses immeasurable wisdom.
He possesses inconceivable confidence.
His speech is completely pure.
His melody is pleasing.
One never has enough of seeing him.

At that time the bodhisattvas joined their voices together and addressed the Buddha in verse form, saying:

We beg you not to worry.
After the Buddha has passed into extinction,
in an age of fear and evil
we will preach far and wide.

There will be many ignorant people
who will curse and speak ill of us
and will attack us with swords and staves,
but we will endure all these things.

In that evil age there will be monks
with perverse wisdom and hearts that are fawning and crooked
who will suppose they have attained what they have not attained,
being proud and boastful in heart.

Or there will be forest-dwelling monks
wearing clothing of patched rags and living in retirement,
who will claim they are practicing the true way,
despising and looking down on all humankind.

Greedy for profit and support,
they will preach the Law to white-robed laymen
and will be respected and revered by the world
as though they were arhats who possess the six transcendental powers.

These men with evil in their hearts,
constantly thinking of worldly affairs,
will borrow the name of forest-dwelling monks
and take delight in proclaiming our faults,
saying things like this:

“These monks are greedy
for profit and support
and therefore they preach non-Buddhist doctrines
and fabricate their own scriptures
to delude the people of the world.
Because they hope to gain fame and renown thereby
they make distinctions when preaching this sutra.”

Because in the midst of great assemblies
they constantly try to defame us,
they will address the rulers, high ministers,
Brahmans, and householders,
as well as the other monks,
slandering and speaking evil of us,
saying, “These are men of perverted views
who preach non-Buddhist doctrines!”

But because we revere the Buddha
we will bear all these evils.

Though they treat us with contempt, saying,
“You are all no doubt buddhas!”
all such words of arrogance and contempt
we will endure and accept.

In a muddied kalpa, in an evil age,
there will be many things to fear.

Evil demons will take possession of others
and through them curse, revile, and heap shame on us.

But we, reverently trusting in the Buddha,
will put on the armor of perseverance.

In order to preach this sutra
we will bear these difficult things.

We care nothing for our bodies or lives
but are anxious only for the unsurpassed way.
In ages to come we will protect and uphold
what the Buddha has entrusted to us.

This the world-honored one must know.

The evil monks of that muddied age,
failing to understand the Buddha’s expedient means,
how he preaches the Law in accordance with what is appropriate,
will confront us with foul language and angry frowns;
again and again we will be banished
to a place far removed from towers and temples.

All these various evils,
because we keep in mind the Buddha’s orders,
we will endure.

If in the settlements and towns
there are those who seek the Law,
we will go to wherever they are
and preach the Law entrusted to us by the Buddha.

We will be envoys of the world-honored one,
facing the assemblies without fear.
We will preach the Law with skill,
for we desire the Buddha to rest in tranquillity.

In the presence of the world-honored one
and of the buddhas who have gathered from the ten directions
we proclaim this vow.

The Buddha must know what is in our hearts.

— The Lotus Sutra

"The tradition of Nath, the tradition of Aghori, actually it is not Hinduism, it is actually ancient tantric practice. It is the [same] origin of the Tibetan Vajrayana.

"As you know, the Tibetan Vajrayana became a little bit diluted, or watered down, in some sense because of the background of Tibetan culture, Tibetan language, Tibetan tradition. Things were a little bit different, but the root is all the same as what we see with the ancient tantric practices. The same as the Aghori tradition..."

Dilgo Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche

https://fb.watch/pdtJ8YJcEz/