Status Updates From Becoming the Compassion Bud...

“Who is your guru?” someone will ask. “My own small wisdom is my guru,” you will say. “It guides me in a simple way...explaining to me my entire nature. That is my guru.”’

‘“Wisdom is my guru,” you should explain to yourself. If we always rely on someone else when we have psychological problems, we will remain weak. “Guru” does not have to refer to something physical. There is the relative guru, and there is the absolute guru. The relative guru refers to the outside person, but the actual guru is your own wisdom...’

‘Whatever you think of as your “I” -“I am this, I am that“- your mind makes it up and gives it a name. When you check with intensive wisdom, nothing whatsoever can be found. It’s just like an actor: One minute he pretends to be one person, the next minute he changes his clothes and becomes somebody else.’

‘The sense of who we are is a complete hallucination. It has nothing to do whatsoever to do with reality, but it is so strong.’

‘...result will come.’

‘When your mind creates a pure, divine vision, beyond ordinary conception, you are automatically elevated into a blissful space....Automatically, all negative energy and defilements disappear from your mind, just as darkness disappears when you switch on a light...Visualization is very powerful. It’s a scientific process, not just something religious you have to believe in. Don’t believe in anything; just act and...

‘This whole process has to do with awakening our mind. Our usual actions are like those of a cow, but when we transform them, they become divine and beyond normal conceptions...
I tell you, everything that you consider good or bad, the entire sensory world, is your own psychological invention. Your mind makes it up. Nothing that exists in this world is absolutely, automatically good or bad. That is impossible.’

‘Think about how you are when you get up most mornings....your mind goes straight into your coffee. Instead of starting your day like that, imagine that Avalokiteshvara is there beside you, waking you up by sending powerful, radiant white light directly into your consciousness....Think: “I am very lucky still to be alive this morning...” Dedicate everything you do to the benefit of all sentient beings....

According to Buddha...every thought, word, and deed plants seeds in our minds that will necessarily ripen as fruit: negative actions ripen as suffering, positive actions ripen as happiness...With karma, there is no one sitting in judgment, punishing or rewarding us. Actions bring their own results; it just naturally happens, according to Buddha.
from Robina Courtin's introduction