Yearning Unceasingly

“Occupations such as commerce, agriculture, industry and academia involve you in numerous activities and provide endless sources of distraction. These trivial pursuits keep you constantly busy for inconsequential goals. However much effort you make, none of it has any meaning. There is no end to the process of overcoming rivals and favoring friends.

Abandon all these endless activities and distractions like so much spit in the dust. Leave your homeland behind and head for unknown lands. Dwell at the foot of rocky cliffs with only wild animals for companions. Settle your body and mind down in a state of ease. Stop caring about food, clothing or what people say. Live out your life in deserted places where there are no other human beings. Jetsun Milarepa said:

In a rocky cave in a deserted land
My sorrow is unrelenting.
My teacher, Buddha of the three times,
I yearn for you unceasingly.”

– The Words of My Perfect Teacher

Being a Warrior

“When a warrior has to kill his enemy, he has a very soft heart. The idea of renunciation is to relate with whatever arises with a sense of sadness and tenderness.

When dealing with fear, that shaky vulnerability contains an element of sadness, but not in the sense of feeling badly about yourself or feeling deprived. Rather, we feel a natural sense of fullness which is tender and sad.

In all your mannerisms, every aspect of behavior, you maintain your openness to the environment. You constantly extend yourself to things around you. There is a complete absence of laziness.

Becoming a warrior means that you are building a world that does not give you the setting sun, or degraded, concept of rest, which is purely indulging in your confusion.

The basic vision of warriorship is that there is goodness in everyone. We are all good in ourselves.

Similarly, for the inquisitive warrior, trust means that we know that our actions will bring a definite response from reality. We know that we will get a message. Failure generally is telling us that our action has been undisciplined and inaccurate in some way. Therefore, it fails. When our action is fully disciplined, it usually is fulfilled; we have success. But those responses are not regarded as either punishment or congratulations.

Trust then is being willing to take a chance, knowing that what goes up must come down, as they say. When a warrior has that kind of trust in the reflections of the phenomenal world, then he or she can trust his or her individual discovery of goodness. Communication produces results, either success or failure. That is how the fearless warrior relates with the universe: not by remaining alone and insecure, hiding away, but by constantly being exposed to the phenomenal world and constantly being willing to take that chance.

We have unconditional trust in the phenomenal world to always give us a message, either success or failure. The fruition of our action will always provide us with information.

There is always a sense of creativity, so there is always joy on the journey, joy in the result.

You are one of the warriors in this world, so even if little unexpected things happen, good or bad, right or wrong, you don’t exaggerate them. You come back to your seat in the saddle and maintain your posture in the situation.

But unconditional fearlessness is simply based on being awake. Once you have command of the situation, fearlessness is unconditional because you are neither on the side of success or failure. Success and failure are your journey.” – CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA RINPOCHE

Faith is Conscience

“It is not a question of to whom a man prays, but a question of his faith. Faith is conscience, the foundation of which is laid in childhood. If a man changes his religion, he loses his conscience, and conscience is the most valuable thing in a man. I respect his conscience, and since his conscience is sustained by his faith and his faith by his religion, therefore I respect his religion; and for me it would be a great sin if I should begin to judge his religion or to disillusion him about it.” – G.I. Gurdjieff in “Meetings With Remarkable Men”

Freedom

“The more you welcome others, the freer you become.” – Chogyam Trungpa

 

Progression of Living

“You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary. And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge. And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, And all work is empty save when there is love; And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.” – Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

Happiness and Messiness

“The Tibetan tradition has long sought to persuade people to practice with the promise of great bliss. Other religious traditions seek to attract followers with the promise of bliss, universal selfhood (Atman, Brahma, cosmic consciousness, etc.), eternal life (heaven or paradise) or total purity. As I discussed in Chapter 7 of Wake Up to Your Life and in An Arrow to the Heart, all four of these goals are reactive patterns that seek to escape the messiness of life for an idealized life.

However, you cannot experience the fullness of life without experiencing the messiness of life. Mess is part of life, not something extra that can be done away with if you just manage to live the right way. (The mistaken belief behind the pursuit of happiness as a goal is that you can actually control your life and your experience of life.) Because control is an illusion, the only question is how to meet what happens in your life. 

Expect to put in many hours on the cushion and just as many hours in other ways to develop the skills and abilities you need to recognize and follow your path. And don’t be concerned about whether anyone else recognizes or appreciates what you are doing. Again, like art, spiritual practice doesn’t produce anything that is tangibly useful, yet it is one of the most important, the most meaningful, aspects of life.” – Ken Mcleod