Self-Immolation

How to interpret surface level contradictions? Listen to this explanation from a Buddhist: “These stories are not contradictory because Highly Realized beings abide in the Expanse of Great Equanimity with Perfect understanding and can do anything. Everything is possible. Everything is flexible. Enlightened beings can appear in any way they want or need to.” ~ Buddhist Scholar KPS Rinpoche

"It is difficult to feel fear without thinking that something is going wrong. We react impulsively when we judge others or ourselves in an attempt to escape the pain of suffering. It doesn't work, just as running away into the woods doesn't work either. Even sacred places are doomed to disappoint us if we go there motivated by a desire to escape. However, if we take refuge in the Dhamma, interest in understanding fear and learning from it can be triggered. Can we experience the feeling of fear without becoming afraid? Fear is still fear, but it is recognized through an expanded consciousness that is less foggy and less threatened. We can even begin to realize that fear too 'is what it is'. A non-judgmental and wholehearted recognition, in body and mind, of the condition of fear, here and now, can transform our pain into freedom. The willingness to recognize where we stand is the way." Ajahn Munindo

New blog! And a brand new entry! On the Buddhist Concept of Divine Monarchy according to the Golden Light Sutra https://vajrakingdom.wordpress.com/2023/03/15/on-the-buddhist-concept-of-divine-monarchy-according-to-the-golden-light-sutra/

If you fully understand karma, at the deepest level, you will not only have compassion for beings who are suffering, but you will also have compassion for any beings who are harming others. - Chamtrul Rinpoche

"In the Vajra Vehicle, like the lesser vehicles, the practitioner overcomes all forms of ignorant conceptuality that create the grasped difference of this and that. By doing so, the phenomena produced by dualistic grasping are stopped and the conventional mindstream is eliminated. The practitioner opens up his inherent wisdom and the complete display of wisdom appearances with it. The experience of these pure appearances is the experience of bliss. Hence the practitioner returns to a wisdom which is a wisdom of co-emergent bliss-emptiness." Tony Duff

"As a disciple you must regard your Guru as an Enlightened Being. Even if from his own point of view he is not Enlightened and you, his disciple, have gained Buddhahood before him, you must still show him respect and pay homage. For instance, Maitreya, the fifth and next Buddha of the thousand of this world age, who now presides over Tusita Buddha-field, became Enlightened before his Guru, Sakyamuni Buddha. To demonstrate respect for his Guru, Maitreya has a stupa or reliquary monument on his forehead. Likewise Avalokitesvara, the incarnation of the compassion of all the Buddhas, is crowned in his eleven-headed aspect with the head of his Guru, Amitabha Buddha, the one who presides over Sukhavati Buddha-field. This learning from a Guru should not be like killing a deer to extract its musk and then discarding its corpse. Even after attaining Enlightenment you must still continue to honor your Guru who made all your achievements possible." Geshe Ngawang Dhargey

“Of all the battles in the world, ignorance is the most dangerous enemy and anger the deadliest weapon. Only a warrior of wisdom wielding the spear of compassion can defeat them” - Chamtrul Rinpoche

Any kind of adherence to views prevents the realization of a truly open awareness, the only capable of reflecting the boundless wholeness. Therefore, merely understanding the absence of inherent existence (through inferential conclusions - as in madhyamika-prasangika) is not enough to understand the Ultimate

By and large, human beings tend to prefer to fit in to society by following accepted rules of etiquette and being gentle, polite, and respectful. The irony is that this is also how most people imagine a spiritual person should behave. When a so-called dharma practitioner is seen to behave badly, we shake our heads over her audacity at presenting herself as a follower of the Buddha. Yet such judgments are better avoided, because to “fit in” is not what a genuine dharma practitioner strives for. Think of Tilopa, for example. He looked so outlandish that if he turned up on your doorstep today, odds are you would refuse to let him in. And you would have a point. He would most likely be almost completely naked; if you were lucky, he might be sporting some kind of G-string; his hair would never have been introduced to shampoo; and protruding from his mouth would quiver the tail of a live fish. What would your moral judgment be of such a being? “Him! A Buddhist?” This is how our theistic, moralistic, and judgmental minds work. Of course, there is nothing wrong with morality, but the point of spiritual practice, according to the vajrayana teachings, is to go beyond all our concepts, including those of morality. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

"If you engage in no practice of pure Dharma at all for the sake of lasting happiness but strive your entire life merely to eliminate your suffering and attain happiness, then you are like an animal despite your fortunate rebirth since animals do the same." Je Tsongkhapa

"Faith is the foremost vehicle leading to definite release. For that reason the intelligent rely on the pursuit of faith. In those lacking faith, virtuous phenomena do not arise, just as in seeds burnt by fire, no green sprout can germinate." Daśadharmakasūtra

"Say that someone demolishes all the stūpas found here in Jambudvīpa; the bad actions of someone who abandons the sūtras are far more grave. Even if someone murders as many arhats as there are grains of sand in the Ganges, the bad actions of someone who abandons the sūtras are far more grave." Samādhirājasūtra