Sogyal Rinpoche notes from the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism how difficult it is for us to recognize our true nature or original "nature of mind" through the myriad obfuscations of our conditioning. We are bred to look outward instead of within, and so continue to be forever entangled in a mental and sensory jungle. As these ancient teachings say, our pure and stainless nature of mind is consequently "too close to be recognized, just as we are unable to see our own face...too profound for us to fathom... too easy for us to believe - all we need to do is simply rest in naked, pure awareness, which is always present... and too wonderful, beyond belief of our narrow way of thinking."
Our society has no use for this wisdom. It is not a means to conventional success or diversion, or so it seems, and we learn immediately to seek gratification in external and ultimately impermanent things. Can you say TV, internet and the almighty dollar? In the end even our dearest values found in family and friendship will slip from our grip no matter how tightly we grasp them.
S.R. notes the poignance of our futility, especially for modern man, who is born and bred to unparalleled excesses of mind and body, making enlightenment all the more difficult to attain or even seek in a sustained thirty years! Yes, what a long, strange trip it's been indeed. S.R. sums it up perfectly when he says: "This is perhaps the darkest and most disturbing aspect of modern civilization--its ignorance and repression of who we really are."
But fear not, intrepid seeker of a way out of suffering and into the deepest peace. I have come from more darkness than many, and I swear to you that this enlightenment thing so scorned and spurned by modern society is more real than these snow-capped mountains surrounding me this very instant, more real than this bag of guts and screeching brain I have hauled around for fifty-nine years. Please trust me. I love you and would never deceive you, nor am I deluded. The place from which I speak has no trace of deception or delusion, and it has been confirmed many times over many centuries by men and women who loved us dearly, despite our ignorance. Whether Jesus really spoke these words or not, they are enlightened: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." Pinned to the cross, he felt compassion for us. No wonder people worship him as a son of God, sadly, because in those words he is telling us that we are exactly as he is, though ignorant of it.
Right now I have no body and no-mind, and so do you. All of this stuff we constantly think and do is not who or what we really are. Yes, some of it is necessary for survival of the body-mind - nothing wrong with that in essence - but all of it obscures our true nature like clouds obscure the sky. Let them come and let them go. Let it rain. All of it just evaporates in the end and we remain, empty and radiant as a cloudless sky. Bathed in radiant love, limitless, free. This is truth, for I am there right now, and so are you.
Our society has no use for this wisdom. It is not a means to conventional success or diversion, or so it seems, and we learn immediately to seek gratification in external and ultimately impermanent things. Can you say TV, internet and the almighty dollar? In the end even our dearest values found in family and friendship will slip from our grip no matter how tightly we grasp them.
S.R. notes the poignance of our futility, especially for modern man, who is born and bred to unparalleled excesses of mind and body, making enlightenment all the more difficult to attain or even seek in a sustained thirty years! Yes, what a long, strange trip it's been indeed. S.R. sums it up perfectly when he says: "This is perhaps the darkest and most disturbing aspect of modern civilization--its ignorance and repression of who we really are."
But fear not, intrepid seeker of a way out of suffering and into the deepest peace. I have come from more darkness than many, and I swear to you that this enlightenment thing so scorned and spurned by modern society is more real than these snow-capped mountains surrounding me this very instant, more real than this bag of guts and screeching brain I have hauled around for fifty-nine years. Please trust me. I love you and would never deceive you, nor am I deluded. The place from which I speak has no trace of deception or delusion, and it has been confirmed many times over many centuries by men and women who loved us dearly, despite our ignorance. Whether Jesus really spoke these words or not, they are enlightened: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." Pinned to the cross, he felt compassion for us. No wonder people worship him as a son of God, sadly, because in those words he is telling us that we are exactly as he is, though ignorant of it.
Right now I have no body and no-mind, and so do you. All of this stuff we constantly think and do is not who or what we really are. Yes, some of it is necessary for survival of the body-mind - nothing wrong with that in essence - but all of it obscures our true nature like clouds obscure the sky. Let them come and let them go. Let it rain. All of it just evaporates in the end and we remain, empty and radiant as a cloudless sky. Bathed in radiant love, limitless, free. This is truth, for I am there right now, and so are you.
Good from evil? TBLD from Sogyal Rinpoche. The man had one hell of a rap, as so many of these spiritual grifters do.
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