When we practice together, we develop —beyond our conceptual minds— a Dharmic bond. As we go within and reclaim our Buddha Nature in the company of our Dharma friends, spontaneously we develop equanimity, compassion, loving kindness, and rejoicing in the virtue and happiness of each other. —TN
Being a hermit doesn’t mean you live in the deep forest;
it means that your mind is free from dualistic constructs.
―Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava
To generate bodhichitta is to arouse the mind that vows to save all sentient beings.
—Harada Sekkei Roshi
The cause is Buddha Nature;
the support is the precious human body;
the condition is the spiritual friend;
the method is their oral instructions;
the fruition is the perfect Buddha Form;
the activity is non-conceptual benefit to beings.
—Gampopa
Patience opens the door to resilience. It generates a gap, also known as Mindful Gap. That gap is space. It is wisdom. When we create this gap, we’re creating a kind of safety zone that can help us begin to accept the situation we’re in. And acceptance is essential when we’re dealing with difficult challenges in our lives.
—Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
Attachment to ignorance is of four kinds: being led astray by delusion and desire, experiencing great calamities and sufferings; having no faith in the result of causes performing impure actions; rejecting the perfect Dharma and having faith in a false path; and sinking in the river of the defilements while floundering in the four floods of sensuality, becoming, views, and ignorance.
—Vasubandhu, Bodhicittotpādasūtra Sāstra
‘Emptiness’ means absence of designation. That which is beyond designation is not amenable to designation. That which is not amenable to designation is neither mundane nor supramundane. That which is neither mundane nor supramundane is called ‘emptiness.’
—Buddha Shakyamuni, Dharmamudrā
It is one of the many paradoxes of spiritual life that generating loving-kindness toward others is one of the fastest ways to make ourselves happy.
—Tulku Thondup
If one does not win friends by flattery, is not jealous of others’ superiority, always rejoices when others gain fame, and never slanders a Bodhisattva, one will be free of enmity.
—Buddha Shakyamuni, Sumatidārikā Paripṛcchā Sūtra
Compassion for beings gives rise to bodhichitta (the mind of enlightenment) because one sees them attached to ignorance, preoccupied by various sufferings, accumulating unwholesome actions, beings engaged in increasingly harmful conduct, and not engaged in the perfect Dharma.
—Vasubandhu, Bodhicittotpādasūtra Sāstra
Great Middle Way 