Best quote ever, discovered while reading in the bathtub last night. What a moment."Imagine that you come home one day after work to find your door smashed open, hanging on the hinges. You have been robbed. You go inside and find that everything you won has vanished. For a moment you are paralyzed with shock, and in despair you frantically go through the mental process of trying to recreate what is gone. It hits you: you've lost everything. Your restless, agitated mind is then
stunned, and thoughts subside. And there's a sudden, deep stillness, almost an experience of bliss. No more struggle, no more effort, because both are hopeless. Now you just have to give up, you have no choice.
So one moment you have lost something precious, and then, in the very next moment, you find your mind is resting in a deep state of peace. When this kind of experience occurs, do not immediately rush to find solutions. Remain for a while in that state of peace. Allow it to be a gap. And if you really rest in that gap, looking into the mind, you will catch a glimpse of the deathless nature of the enlightened mind." -Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Hope you enjoyed!
-MM
3 comments:
wow, what liberation in that quote. you have no idea how much i needed that...as alllllll the ground around me seems to be dissolving, I was just reflecting heavily upon this- and you know that place where you're pretty sure you are growing from it, it's so great, but there is a tiny part of you that could sit in a corner and rock back and forth laughing and crying at the same time? 'Tis my diverging roads at the moment! Jeez.
That "gap" that Sogyal Rinpoche mentions is central to the whole Tibetan Buddhism experience. It happens when you stop "thinking" and start "being" and is very difficult to achieve beyond the occasional brief flash but that is (as I understand it) what enlightenment is all about. Well worth the effort, IMHO.
i keep coming back to read this, as i believe i have been 'robbed,' :). ah, the clouds of the future...perspective that comes + then passes just as quickly. To sit still, let the impending waves have their way, as they will in spite of any running I do. To remember in that terrifying moment that there is a spaciousness to be found, a peace to be found in that gap. TY for this quote, Lori.
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