As he wrote in his autobiography, “Whenever I teach or study the Dharma, I still feel that the little understanding that I have achieved is due to the kindness of Mipham Rinpoche, who was Manjushri in person.”
“All art is a work in progress. It’s helpful to see the piece we’re working on as an experiment. One in which we can’t predict the outcome. Whatever the result, we will receive useful information that will benefit the next experiment. If you start from the position that there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, and creativity is just free play with no rules, it’s easier to submerge yourself joyfully in the process of making things. We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun. A more skillful goal might be to find comfort in the process. To make and put out successive works with ease.”
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
“There is either being caught up in thinking, or there is a moment of rigpa.”
― As It Is, Volume II
― As It Is, Volume II
“For the nature of man is such that he is better than other things only when he knows himself, and yet if he ceases to know himself he is made lower than the brutes. For it is natural for other animals not to have this self-knowledge; in man it is a fault. How far from your true state have you wandered when you think you can be at all improved by the addition of the beauties of other things!”
― Theological Tractates/The Consolation of Philosophy
― Theological Tractates/The Consolation of Philosophy
“The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray.”
― Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
― Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
“Living life as an artist is a practice.
You are either engaging in the practice
or you’re not.
It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it.
It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.”
You are either living as a monk or you’re not.
We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output.
The real work of the artist
is a way of being in the world.”
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
You are either engaging in the practice
or you’re not.
It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it.
It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.”
You are either living as a monk or you’re not.
We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output.
The real work of the artist
is a way of being in the world.”
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Colleen’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Colleen’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Colleen
Lists liked by Colleen
























