Sunday

If we continue to meditate on the Buddhist path we will eventually have all kinds of experiences that we may never have had before, such as bliss, clarity, nonconceptuality, and clairvoyance. But we must understand that they are only a byproduct of our meditation, and that they are not the ultimate goal. If we become attached to these experiences they will only distract us from the path and we will not progress towards liberation and enlightenment.

Chamtrul Rinpoche

Monday

We are visitors on this planet. We are here for ninety or one hundred years at the very most. During that period, we must try to do something good, something useful, with our lives. If you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Tuesday

An appearance can only exist if there is a mind that beholds it. The 'beholding' of that appearance is nothing other than experience; that is what actually takes place.

All the elements are vividly distinguished as long as the mind fixates on them. Yet they are nothing but a mere presence, an appearance.

When the mind doesn't apprehend, hold, or fixate on what is experienced, 'reality' loses its solid, obstructing quality.

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

Wednesday

Illusion immediately becomes more workable when we acknowledge it as simply an illusion. The Western habit is to work against the grain and to try and organize the illusory into something solid and structured.

In the stressful attempt to nail down the illusory nature of things, our chance to be at ease, spacious, awake, and free, which already exists within ourselves, gets lost.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Thursday

It is not just a matter of giving up attachment to this life's rewards but of losing our taste and affinity for the whole of worldly existence.

This is why it is necessary to contemplate and meditate upon the faults of conditioned existence. Otherwise, we may imagine that samsara possesses any manner of attractive qualities. Pondering the shortcomings of samsara should bring forth in us a tangible sense of disgust, as we are confronted with our own misguided pursuit of worldly ends.

Chogye Trichen Rinpoche

Friday

My fear and doubts have vanished like mist into the distance, never to disturb me again.

I will die content and free from regrets. This is the fruit of Dharma practice.

Milarepa

Saturday

There is no place of pilgrimage as fabulous and as open as this body of mine, no place more worth exploring.

Saraha