This article was posted by CrystalWind.ca.
Seven Teachings from the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
- Details
- Written by AndEl
Throughout mankind, there has been many spiritual documents and instructions uncovered, but we are faced with one problem; which one do we follow? Well, it’s up to you to decide which faith you’d like to partake in. However, these ancient Tibetan teachings will make life a bit simpler.
Many researchers and philosophers have inscribed, written, and typed what they thought we should be doing here and why were here in the first place. Many people throughout the era of Transcendentalism tried to make life simpler, and outline the basic necessities of life. It’s a trend that never seemed to fade, and there are tons of different algorithms created for instructional purposes of a simpler life.
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Sogyal Rinpoche in 1992 is an extremely wise book that stresses only the most important lessons to be learned throughout life. The book consists of teachings from Tibetan Buddhism. It teaches many different Tibetan lessons, and these are the ways to live and die well, according to the book’s author, Sogyal Rinpoche in 1992.
Happiness is Up to You
The most prominent goal and ambition in people’s life journeys is to achieve overall happiness. The book has been referred to as powerful and having the ability to touch the heart and awaken the soul.
A Peaceful Death
As a Buddhist, I view death as a normal process, a reality that I accept will occur as long as I remain in this earthly existence. Knowing that I cannot escape it, I see no point in worrying about it. I tend to think of death as being like changing your clothes when they are old and worn out, rather than as some final end. Yet death is unpredictable: We do not know when or how it will take place. So it is only sensible to take certain precautions before it actually happens. Naturally, most of us would like to die a peaceful death, but it is also clear that we cannot hope to die peacefully if our lives have been full of violence, or if our minds have mostly been agitated by emotions like anger, attachment, or fear. So if we wish to die well, we must learn how to live well: Hoping for a peaceful death, we must cultivate peace in our mind, and in our way of life.
Slip Out of the Noose of your habitual Anxious Self
Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. Think of your ordinary emotional, thought-ridden self as a block of ice or a slab of butter left out in the sun. If you are feeling hard and cold, let this aggression melt away in the sunlight of your meditation. Let peace work on you and enable you to gather your scattered mind into the mindfulness of Calm Abiding, and awaken in you the awareness and insight of Clear Seeing. And you will find all your negativity disarmed, your aggression dissolved, and your confusion evaporating slowly like mist into the vast and stainless sky of your absolute nature. – Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Know Yourself
Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn’t that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own? – Sogyal Rinpoche
Spiritual Truth is Common Sense
Spiritual truth is not something elaborate and esoteric, it is, in fact, profound common sense. When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don’t actually “become” a Buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a Buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming, at last, a true human being. – Sogyal Rinpoche
Meditation Unknots the Mind
Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if we’re honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries. Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity. – Sogyal Rinpoche
The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this life. For it is only through meditation that you can undertake the journey to discover your true nature, and so find the stability and confidence you will need to live and die, well. Meditation is the road to enlightenment … Quietly sitting, body still, speech silent, mind at peace, let your thoughts and emotions, whatever arises, come and go, without clinging to anything. – Sogyal Rinpoche
Nothing Ever Works out How You Want It
Planning for the future is like going fishing in a dry gulch; nothing ever works out as you wanted, so give up all your schemes and ambitions. If you have got to think about something— Make it the uncertainty of the hour of your death. – Sogyal Rinpoche
Embrace Impermanence and Humility
What is born will die, What has been gathered will be dispersed, What has been accumulated will be exhausted, What has been built up will collapse, And what has been high will be brought low. – Sogyal Ringo
The optical Delusion of Separateness
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in. – Sogyal Rinpoche
© CrystalWind.ca 2024. All content (articles, imagery, fair use) & design protected. Written permission required for copying. All rights reserved.
Join the Conversation Now! Comment Below!
Spirit Animal Totem Of The Day!
Crystal Of The Day!
Latest Articles
CrystalWind.ca is free to use because of
donations from people like you.
Donate Now »
Unlock Your Light: Join Lightworkers Worldwide on CrystalWind.ca!
Articles: Buddhism
Follow Us!
Who is Online Now
We have 20977 guests and no members online
Featured This Month
Yule Blessings
Yule The Winter Solstice or Yule is one of the Lesser Wiccan Sabbats, and it ... Read more
Sagittarius Mythology
The Sagittarius Myth Other than Virgo, the Sagittarius myth is probably the... Read more
Yule By The Hedgewitch
Yule Yule is a solar festival and one of the Minor Sabbats. This is when the ... Read more
Yule - The Winter Solstice
Yule, or the Winter Solstice is one of the lesser Sabbats of the Witches calen... Read more
Winter Solstice - A Season of Giving
CELEBRATING THE WINTER SOLSTICE The December solstice is also known as the ... Read more
Sun in Sagittarius
An Overview of Sun Sign Characteristics for Sagittarius At the heart of Sagit... Read more
Long Snows Moon
Elk – Obsidian – Black Spruce – Black November 22 to December 21 The Long ... Read more
Gods and Monsters of the Winter Solstice
La Befana Because Santa Claus has presided over the Yule festival for the las... Read more
Twas The Night Before Yuletide
Yule Chant Brightly burns the Yule log tonight Magic dances in firelight Ho... Read more