Teaching Excerpts

Chenrezig is Compassionate Emptiness

Chenrezig is compassionate emptiness. Chenrezig is not a flesh and blood person who has to sit there for eternity and who has to hold his two arms up. He is the affect of the realization […]

Teaching Excerpts

Our Potential for Awakening

Our basic nature—our basic being—is absolutely perfect. It is identical to the basic being or basic nature of buddhas. No distinction whatsoever can be made between the buddha nature of a sentient being and the […]

Teaching Excerpts

Because You Care So Much

There is only one reason to receive authentic vajrayana empowerment, and that is that you care so much about other beings that you are in a hurry to achieve buddhahood for their benefit. Sometimes people […]

Teaching Excerpts

Pure Realms Complete Within Your Own Mind

…sometimes we talk about a pure realm, for example the celestial realm of Vajrayogini, as though it were an external place—somewhere else; but then in this context we talk about it as something that is […]

Teaching Excerpts

Cultivate Without Fixation

How do you rest the mind in this immediate or present awareness? By not being distracted from the continuity of mere presence. Distraction from the continuity of mere presence occurs when we think about what […]

Teaching Excerpts

Have the Real Intention to Help Others

It’s not helpful to scold ourselves or blame ourselves for what we perceive as lack of success in actually benefiting others because giving into disappointment about that can cause us to lose our resolve to […]

Teaching Excerpts

Both Good and Bad Meditation Experiences are Irrelevant

What we are cultivating in meditation is familiarity with the ordinary mind, the mind that is simply experiencing the present moment directly. That’s all we’re looking for. So extraordinary experiences, feelings of joy, or tremendous […]

Teaching Excerpts

Renunciation and Adversity

Many people talk about renunciation, but mostly they’re spouting dharma jargon because it’s what they’ve been told is good, and they want to sound good. Sometimes when we’re in the presence of a great master […]