The Tibetan Wisdom on Life and Death part 1
On the occasion of the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Paris in October 2003, Sogyal Rinpoche gave this memorable talk on the Tibetan Buddhist understanding of life and and death to an audience of over 3,000 people.
In the first part of this talk, Rinpoche talks understanding death and impermanence, and how that can lead us to the most important discovery of life, to ‘the deathless, unending nature of mind’, which he reads about from Chapter 3 of The Tibetan book of Living and Dying.
Parts two and three of this talk will be posted in the coming weeks.
This talk is also available as an audio podcast which you can find on our Audio page.
New Teachings on SogyalRinpoche.org!
Don’t forget to keep checking SogyalRinpoche.org for a growing selection of teachings from the author of the international bestseller The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying!
Finding Your Balance with the Sky-like Nature of Mind
What happens when you transform your mind through meditation? In an instant, mind ceases being neurotic and argumentative. It becomes totally peaceful. You’re in control, remaining in a simple way of being.
Training in meditation is like learning how to ride a bicycle. Once you know how to keep your balance on a bike, you don’t have to think about your balance any more, because the balance is in you. Likewise, once you have trained in meditation, your mind is in balance.
There is a way to find that balance and go beyond thoughts into the nature of mind. Thoughts are like clouds. Even though the clouds sometimes seem to cover the entire sky, if you take a plane you can go beyond them into a vast space that is never even touched by the clouds. The clouds of our ordinary thoughts are just temporary and changing, whilst the deeper nature of our mind is unchanging, like the infinite space of the sky.
This teaching is from Vigo, Spain, 17 October 2012.
Elizabeth Namgyal Talks about Sogyal Rinpoche
In this short interview extract, Buddhist teacher and author Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, speaks about her first encounter with Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Read More
Finding Peace and Stability in a Troubled World part two
Meditation has many levels, but on the most profound level we can say that mediation is using the mind to skillfully and subtly recognize the essence and true nature of your mind.
In June 2009, as part of the events held for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Amsterdam, Sogyal Rinpoche gave a memorable talk on Finding Peace and Stability in a Troubled World to an audience of thousands.
In this is the second half of that talk, Rinpoche explains the deeper aspects of meditation as a way of bringing the mind home, and how we can bring that simplicity, spaciousness, and humor we discover through meditation into our daily lives and activities.
You can find the first part of this talk here.
Finding Peace and Stability in a Troubled World part one
Regardless of who we are, the main purpose of our life–you could call it ‘the heart of being human’–is to be happy.
All of us share the same wish, the same right, to seek happiness and to avoid suffering.
But if we look closely we can see there are two kinds of happiness:
One is based more on physical comfort or pleasure, the happiness of the senses.
The other is founded on a deeper, mental contentment.
In June 2009, as part of the events held for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Amsterdam, Sogyal Rinpoche gave a memorable talk on Finding Peace and Stability in a Troubled World to an audience of thousands.
In this first part of the talk, Rinpoche talks about finding that inner peace and contentment as the basis for a more-enduring happiness. He then explains these four lines that encompass all the teachings of the Buddha:
Commit not a single unwholesome action,
Cultivate a wealth of virtue,
To tame this mind of ours,
This is the teaching of all the buddhas.
In the second and final part of this talk, which you can find here, Rinpoche continues by talking about the deeper aspects of meditation as a way of coming to know the mind, of working with our thoughts and emotions, of overcoming fear and anxiety, leading us to the only lasting and durable happiness and peace.
