Tenzin Palmo
The real spiritual power is enabling beings to realize the nature of the mind. That's the power of Buddha activity.Collection: Spiritual
From a Buddhist point of view, the first thing to help is yourself, to get your own mind together. And to really understand how to benefit beings, not just on the physical level, but on all levels. Then there are endless beings you can benefit.Collection: Buddhist
To be completely enlightened means that you're a Buddha.I don't speak of enlightenment.Collection: Mean
It's interesting that in those countries like Taiwan or Korea, where nuns are given equal opportunities for study and practice, they also develop great social awareness.Collection: Country
The thing to do in this lifetime is to create more merit.Collection: Merit
With sincerity from the depths of your heart to do the best you can, just keep going and don't worry too much that you're not Milarepa or Rechungpa.Collection: Heart
I think the difference is that when we drink tea, we just drink tea. But if you're in the presence of a genuine master, they don't have to do anything but drink their tea, and yet it affects you at an incredibly profound level.Collection: Thinking
We should develop a deep appreciation for all the we have, and not waste it, otherwise we'll die with deep regrets.Collection: Appreciation
Perhaps Westerners are in a better position to practice true renunciation than uneducated Orientals because most Western people, by the time they come to the Dharma, have led a pretty full worldly life with lots of sensual pleasures, money and lots of toys to play with. They have seen that the path of accumulation of worldly treasure does not lead to happiness or contentment. That's why they come to the Dharma.Collection: Practice
In the beginning especially, we won't realize we're changing.Collection: Realizing
On a relative level where we live, we need to have a sense of identity, otherwise we'd fall apart, wouldn't we?Collection: Fall
Buddha activity doesn't mean radiating light and elevating yourself up a thousand feet in the air. That's not the point. The point is, as Zen is always saying - and Tibetans understand this also very well - every activity becomes perfect Buddha activity.Collection: Mean
I think we females have a lot of work to do for each other.Collection: Thinking
We have to know what is Buddhadharma and what is not Buddhadharma. It needn't go on forever. You don't have to spend 18 years at it. But still, a basic and uncompromised understanding of Buddhist principles is important. Very basic: the three signs of being, the four noble rruths, karma, and so on.Collection: Karma
Still all the tulkus being born are men.Collection: Men
In a monastic setting, if someone doesn't want to obey the rules and just wants to live the way they've always lived as a lay person, then why did they become ordained? They have no sense that they have to give something up to gain so much.Collection: Giving
Let's consider: at the time of the Buddha, when he attained enlightenment, according to the old texts, in the first watch of the night, he went through all of his past lifetimes. Then in the second watch of the night, his mind opened still further and encompassed the coming into being and dying and re-coming into being of all beings, everywhere. The third watch of the night, he realized interdependent origination. He realized interdependent origination because he saw it. It wasn't some theory he thought up. He saw it. That was his enlightenment experience. That was why he was a Buddha.Collection: Past
The problem is that our inherent ignorance keeps us in samsara and unable to benefit ourselves and others on a really deep level.Collection: Ignorance
I do think that someone who decides to devote themselves entirely to the spiritual life, that that is more meritorious.Collection: Spiritual
A lot of people with the purest motivation end up getting completely burned out. And that's because they lack the wisdom and the skill and the inner space.Collection: Motivation
If you want to be a doctor, you may say, There are all these beings, they're sick, they're dying, I've got to go out and help them. And so you grab a bag full of scalpels and medicine and rush off. Even though your motivation is very pure, you end up harming beings because you don't know what you're doing.Collection: Motivation
From the point of view of emptiness, there is neither being nor non-being, but we're not on the point of view of emptiness, we're on the point of view of our relative being.Collection: Views
We have compassion because of the incredible pain and suffering which we as unenlightened beings cause to ourselves and all others through our ignorance. This is why we're trying to get out. This is why the bodhisattva has meaning. Because we're saying, no we won't get out, we won't escape until we've helped all other beings to escape, but most other beings don't even want to escape. They don't even know that there is an escape, and it's hard, so it's going to take an awfully long time.Collection: Pain
The Buddha said that samsara by its nature is painful. He didn't say it was a joyride.Collection: Painful
If you take the time to study how to be a doctor and how to use your scalpel and your medicine, then there are endless beings out there to help.Collection: Doctors
I find that being with other people dissipates my energy.Collection: People
You think you're enlightened. But as my lama said, when you realize the intrinsic nature of the mind, then you start to meditate. It's not the end, it's the beginning.Collection: Thinking
The very best players, when they are practicing, put everything they've got into it. But then they leave it for a while. And it's the same in dharma practice.Collection: Player
We're not making up merit scores for ourselves. We're making up merit scores so that we can be reborn in a situation where we can really live to benefit ourselves and others.Collection: Benefits
We have to transform those ordinary actions of our day into dharma practice because otherwise nothing is going to move.Collection: Moving
One has to find a balance. I don't say that when you leave it you forget all about the dharma or practice, but there have to be times when you throw yourself into it, and then there are times when you just relax and realize that wherever you go, you cannot get out of the dharma.Collection: Practice
To be enlightened doesn't mean you end up stupefied and unable to function.Collection: Mean
In Dharma practice, the most important thing is to be very sincere.Collection: Practice
Even if the hermits do not appear to benefit other beings with their presence or teachings, still they are enormously inspiring to many. Perhaps, in this lifetime, they were meant to work on their own practice, to try to purify their own mindstream so that in future lifetimes (that will last a lot longer than this one), they will be fit vessels to give the teachings to others.Collection: Teaching
Once one has understand what is Buddhadharma, what is not Buddhadharma, and once one has had enough view to see the different approaches, then it's important to really look at what speaks to one's heart.Collection: Heart
Wherever we are and whatever we're doing, we're either conscious, or we're not.Collection: Conscious
Whether we're in retreat or out in the world, we should try to develop the quality of awareness as much as possible.Collection: Trying
Obviously the dharma is every breath we take, every thought we think, every word we speak, if we do it with awareness and an open, caring heart.Collection: Heart
Monastic life cuts off the distractions and emotional entanglements one becomes involved in, in the lay life.Collection: Cutting
We have the pure nature of the mind.Collection: Mind
We don't always need to be sitting at the foot of the teacher, but from time to time we need someone who can overview us and give us direction.Collection: Teacher
When you learn an instrument, it takes an awful lot of time to just learn the scales, and then eventually when you have completely mastered the instrument, the music plays for you. But you still have to keep practicing. And it takes an awful lot of practice. Nonetheless, if you diligently practice, hours and hours and hours and hours, you probably won't get it. You'll probably just end up hurting your fingers.Collection: Hurt
To want not to want, you'll tie yourself in knots. So this is why the Tibetans always say, just relax the mind and open.Collection: Ties
I think if you really start practicing, the energy comes. I was always very happy and grateful for the opportunity to have the time, solitude and good health to be able to do it.Collection: Grateful
In one way I would like to teach, but I have no qualifications to teach Westerners.Collection: Way
When one has a decisive realization of the inherent nature of the mind, which has no ego, it has no sense of duality between oneself and the cup, and a deep sense of interpenetration of the whole dharma. Then whatever we do is spontaneously perfect Buddha activity. And anybody who is even slightly tuned in will get a very deep experience of that.Collection: Perfect
In India many people come to discuss things with me. I sometimes say that half of them come saying, "I have a problem, I want to find a teacher." The other half say, "I have a problem because I have a teacher!" So it's not so simple.Collection: Teacher
Why are we sitting? Why are we practicing? Why are we doing anything? It's not so I can be happy. It's so I can embody the dharma in order to benefit other beings.Collection: Order
When we read history we find that in all ages people have thought, this is the dark age.Collection: Dark