.:.
“the very foundation of this 2,500-year-old tradition.
One is a Buddhist if he or she accepts the following four truths:
All compounded things are impermanent.
All emotions are pain.
All things have no inherent existence.
Nirvana is beyond concepts.
These four statements, spoken by the Buddha himself, are known as “the four seals.” Traditionally, seal means something like a hallmark that confirms authenticity.”
.:.
“because everything is interdependent, everything is subject to change. Not one component in all creation exists in an autonomous, permanent, pure state.”
.:.
“All emotions are basically a form of prejudice; within each emotion there is always an element of judgment.”
.:.
“In a similar manner, many of us are deluded about the appearance of our own bodies. When we look at the body, we don’t think in terms of its separate pieces: molecules, genes, veins, and blood. We think of the body as a whole; and moreover, we prejudge that this is a truly existing organism called “the body.”
.:.
“Just like children who are absorbed, thrilled, or even frightened by the ring of fire, we experience emotions toward our bodies’ appearance and well-being.”
.:.
“El cuerpo” es una ilusión como un “plato de fuego” que se hace al girar una bola de fuego atada a una cuerda. [mierda]
“When it comes to a fire ring, adults generally know that it is merely an illusion, so we don’t get worked up. Using basic reason, we can see that the ring is created from its assembled parts—the movement of a hand holding a flaming torch.”
.:.
“Ignorance is simply not knowing the facts, having the facts wrong, or having incomplete knowledge.”
.:.
“Among the first generation of Milarepa’s students was a brilliant scholar named Rechungpa.”
.:.
“By conquering Mara and his army, Siddhartha realized the emptiness of inherent existence. “He understood that everything we see, hear, feel, imagine, and know to exist is simply emptiness onto which we have imputed or labeled a certain “trueness.” This activity of labeling or perceiving the world as true is born out of a strong individual and collective habit—we all do it. The forces of habit are so strong and our concept of emptiness is so unappealing that few have the will to pursue a realization like Siddhartha’s.”
.:.
“If we really analyze, as Siddhartha did, we will find that labels such as “form,” “time,” “space,” “direction,” and “size” are easily dismantled.”
.:.
“… imagine a week’s holiday with your best beloved—it goes like the snap of the fingers. On the other hand, one night in prison with a rowdy rapist seems to last forever. Perceived in this way, our concept of time might start to seem not so stable.”
.:.
“But if you really go too far beyond the accepted boundary, if you completely buy into emptiness, people may well think that you are abnormal, crazy, and irrational.”
.:.
“… denying is a form of underestimating, and blind faith is a form of overestimating.”
.:.
“A bud blooms into a flower, and we still think of it as a truly existing flower as it changes. That growth and change is part of our fixed idea about the nature of the flower.”
“Un capullo
se convierte en flor,
y todavía
pensamos en él
como una
flor
realmente
existente
mientras
cambia.
Ese crecimiento
y cambio
es parte
de nuestra idea fija
fija
fija
fija
sobre la naturaleza
de la flor ".
“We would be much more surprised if it became permanent. So in that sense, our expectation of change is unchanging.”
.:.
“A river flows with fresh water, always changing, and we still call it a river.”
.:.
“The water is different, the Earth is in a different place in its rotation through the galaxy, the leaves have fallen and been replaced—all that remains is an appearance of a river similar to the one that we saw last time. “Appearance” is quite an unstable basis for “truth.” Through simple analysis, the underpinnings of our conventional reality are revealed to be vague generalizations and assumptions.”
.:.
“In his view, “unchanging” must mean unchanging in all dimensions, without exception, even after thorough analysis.”
.:.
“Our ordinary definition of “truth” is a result of partial analysis. If analysis leads to a comfortable answer, if it gives us what we want, we do not go beyond that. Is this really a sandwich? It tastes like a sandwich, so I will eat it. Analysis stops there. A boy is looking for a companion, he sees a girl, she looks beautiful, so he stops analyzing and approaches. Siddhartha’s analysis kept going further and further until the sandwich and the girl were just atoms, and finally even the atoms could not hold up to his analysis. Finding nothing there, he was free from disappointment.
“Siddhartha found that the only way to confirm something as truly existing is to prove that it exists independently and free of interpretation, fabrication, or change.”
.:.
“They are all put together from unstable, impermanent parts and therefore they are always changing. We can understand this assertion in the conventional world. For example, you could say that your reflection in the mirror does not truly exist because it depends on your standing in front of it. If it were independent, then even without your face, there should be a reflection. Similarly, no thing can truly exist without depending on so many uncountable conditions.”
.:.
“… because we don’t have the intelligence to see things in parts, we settle for looking at them as a whole. If all the feathers are plucked from a peacock, we are no longer awed by it. But we are not eager to surrender to seeing all the world this way.”
.:.
“Contrary to popular belief, Buddhist renunciation is not self-flagellation or austerity. Siddhartha was willing and able to see that all of our existence is merely labels placed on phenomena that do not truly exist, and through that he experienced awakening.”
.:.
“Of the abundant points of view in the universe, someone must be jealous, someone must see her as their lover, their daughter, sister, mother, friend, rival. To a crocodile she is food, to a parasite she is a host.”
.:.
“… it must be independent of interpretation.”
Es por eso que se llama: “último” “absoluto”, si se le nombra, entonces hay una dependencia: el que la nombra.
.:.
“Although Siddhartha realized emptiness, emptiness was not manufactured by Siddhartha or anyone else. Emptiness is not the result of his revelation, nor was it developed as a theory to help people be happy. Whether or not Siddhartha taught it, emptiness has always been emptiness, although paradoxically we can’t even really say that emptiness has always been, because it is beyond time and has no form. Nor should emptiness be interpreted as negation of existence—that is, we can’t say that this relative world doesn’t exist either—because in order to negate something, you have to acknowledge that there is something to negate in the first place.”
.:.
“When the right causes and conditions come together, anything can appear. But when those conditions are exhausted, the appearance stops.”
.:.
“We are much better off when realization comes from within.”
.:.
“But some tea fanatics get carried away with the leaves and composing special mixes, creating names like Iron Dragon and selling small amounts for hundreds of dollars. To them it is not just a leaf in water. It was for this reason that some fifteen hundred years after Siddhartha taught, one of his dharma heirs, named Tilopa, said to his student, Naropa, “It is not the appearance that binds you, it’s the attachment to the appearance that binds you.”
.:.
El relato de Upsala (y los ojos).
.:.
“The older monk replied, “I put her down a long time ago. Why are you still carrying her?”
.:.
“All he could do was explain from his experience that there was no suffering in the first place, which is like switching on the light for us.”
.:.
“So why not simplify it into one method? The reason is that, like the variety of medicines needed for different diseases, a variety of methods are necessary for different kinds of habits, cultures, and attitudes.”
.:.
“We fall in love with the illusions we have created and develop excessive pride in our appearance, our possessions, and our accomplishments. It’s like wearing a mask and proudly thinking that the mask is really you.”
.:.
“All it takes is one situation when the conditions are precisely right and one piece of timely information is provided; then you may suddenly realize that all the tools you rely on are not so rigid—they are elastic, bendable. Your point of view will change. If someone you trust tells you that the wife that you have been resenting all these years is actually a goddess of wealth in disguise, then how you look at her will change in every way. Similarly, if you are enjoying a delicious steak with all kinds of sauces at a nice restaurant, savoring every bite, and then the chef tells you it is actually human flesh, instantly the experience changes 180 degrees. Your concept of delicious becomes a concepto of revolting.”
.:.
“When you wake up from a dream about five hundred elephants, you aren’t puzzled about how the elephants were able to fit into your room because they didn’t exist before, during, or after the dream. Yet when you were dreaming about them, they were perfectly real. One day we will realize, not just intellectually, that there is no such thing as “big” and “small,” “gain” or “loss,” that it is all relative. Then we will be able to understand how Milarepa fit inside the yak horn and why a tyrant like King Ashoka bowed down and submitted to this truth.”
.:.
“Like Pygmalion with his statue of Galatea, we create our friends and our enemies as well, but we forget that it is so.”
.:.
“… having no confusion and no ignorance, no happiness and no unhappiness, is bliss.
Seeing the source of confusion and ignorance, the snake for example, as never having existed, is even better. You feel great relief when you awaken from a nightmare, but bliss would be to never have dreamed in the first place. In this sense, bliss is not the same as happiness”
.:.
“Enlightenment transcends doubt, just as knowledge gained through experience transcends doubt.”
.:.
“There is a big distinction between washing the glass and washing the dirt.”
.:.
“the four noble truths: know the suffering; abandon the causes of suffering; apply the path to the cessation of suffering; know that suffering can end.”
.:.
“His greatest achievement was understanding the truth, because it is the understanding of the truth that frees us from suffering once and for all. That is the true miracle. Buddha saw the same old age and sickness and death that we see, but he was driven to find the root causes; and that, too, is a miracle. His realization that all compounded things are impermanent was his ultimate triumph. Instead of flaunting victory over some externally existing enemy, he found that the real enemy is our clinging to the self; and defeating that self-clinging is a miracle far greater than all supernatural miracles, real or imagined.
Although modern scientists take credit for discovering that time and space are relative, Siddhartha came to the same conclusion 2,500 years ago, without any research grants or scientific laboratories—and that, too, is a miracle.”
.:.
“In all religions the view is the foundation of the practice, because the view determines our motivation and actions.”
.:.
“… no one can judge other people’s actions without fully understanding their view.”
.:.
“All methods of Buddhism can be explained with the four seals—all compounded phenomena are impermanent, all emotions are pain, all things have no inherent existence, and enlightenment is beyond concepts.”
… los cuatro sellos:
todos los fenómenos compuestos son impermanentes,
todas las emociones son dolor,
todas las cosas no tienen existencia inherente y
la iluminación está más allá de los conceptos.
.:.
“Siddhartha himself said that the best way to worship is by simply remembering the principle of impermanence, the suffering of emotions, that phenomena have no inherent existence, and that nirvana is beyond concepts.”
.:.
“the great
Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava,
Longchenpa,
Milarepa,
Gampopa,
Sakya Pandita,
Rigzin Jigme Lingpa, and
Patrul Rinpoche.
Those who have found a little bit of inspiration should therefore put some effort into getting to know some of these masters”
.:.
“This book was conceived in a very funky cafe in Ubud, Bali, once a splendid Hindu kingdom; came into form amid the fog and cedar woods on the banks of Daisy Lake; and was completed in the Himalayas. May it bring some curiosity”
.:.
