Buddhists

If you neglect to protect your mind, you can neither close the door to suffering nor open the door to happiness. -Lama Zopa

Mandala Publications “The purpose of having this precious human body is not simply to achieve happiness for oneself, but to eliminate the suffering of all other beings and to bring them happiness as well,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche instructs in his book ‘Transforming Problems Into Happiness,’ published by Wisdom Publications. “This is the purpose of each of our lives. This human body is precious because with it you have the capacity and opportunity to pursue spiritual development in order to serve other living beings. “… The Buddha’s teachings, called the Dharma, tell us the highest happiness achievable is enlightenment. The only reason anyone would not want to achieve enlightenment is that they lack Dharma wisdom. Lacking Dharma wisdom means simply being unaware that there exists a happiness higher than ordinary happiness. ...” Find links to the full excerpt … http://mandala.fpmt.org/2014/ultimate-happiness/

Mandala Publications

Lama Zopa Rinpoche: “Cherishing one sentient being opens the door to all happiness.”

"Thoughts are prompted by and also identical with dissatisfaction..." - Chögyam Trungpa http://ow.ly/xiqRt 

The Sakyong @SakyongMipham · May 22

According to tantra, we do not become enlightened - we discover our enlightenment, which has always been here.

Mingyur Rinpoche @mingyurrinpoche · May 24

Group promotes mindfulness training to help veterans cope with trauma http://wapo.st/1pmf5aC 

"It is a question of removing the clouds rather than of recreating the sun..." - Chögyam Trungpa http://ow.ly/x8KFF 

In the process of self reflection, mindfulness leads us out of being emotional beings to become beings of awareness.

The journey of living defies definition...there is always room to grow.

Quote: Buddha

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What's the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?

Buddha

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/buddha119169.html#kfQKGc5b4bprhQca.99

Nisargadatta elaborates

Nisargadatta

Focusing Nisargadatta

M: Let each act according to his nature. The ultimate purpose will be served in any case. All your discriminations and classifications are quite all right, but they do not exist in my case. As the description of a dream may be detailed and accurate, though without having any foundation, so does your pattern fit nothing but your own assumptions. You begin with an idea and you end with the same idea under a different garb.

Q: How do you see things?

M: One and all are the same to me. The same consciousness (chit) appears as being (sat) and as bliss (ananda): Chit in movement is Ananda; Chit motionless is being.

Q: Still you are making a distinction between motion and motionlessness.

M: Non-distinction speaks in silence. Words carry distinctions. The unmanifested (nirguna) has no name, all names refer to the manifested (saguna). It is useless to struggle with words to express what is beyond words. Consciousness (chidananda) is spirit (purusha), consciousness is matter (prakriti). Imperfect spirit is matter, perfect matter is spirit. In the beginning as in the end, all is one. All division is in the mind (chitta); there is none in reality (chit). Movement and rest are states of mind and cannot be without their opposites. By itself nothing moves, nothing rests. It is a grievous mistake to attribute to mental constructs absolute existence. Nothing exists by itself.

Quotes Nisargadatta Maharaj

  

The same consciousness (chit) appears as being (sat) and as bliss (ananda): Chit in movement is Ananda; Chit motionless is being.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

The 'I am' in movement creates the world. The 'I am' at peace becomes the Absolute.

~Nisargadatta .

Let each act according to his nature. The ultimate purpose will be served in any case.

What comes and goes is experience with its duality of pain and pleasure. Bliss is not to be known. One is always bliss, but never blissful.

Beyond the mind there is no such thing as experience. Experience is a dual state. You cannot talk of reality as an experience

There is nothing wrong with duality as long as it does not create conflict. Multiplicity and variety without strife is joy.


What you can seek and find is not the real thing. Find what you have never lost, find the inalienable.


The world has no existence apart from you. At every moment it is but a reflection of yourself. You create it, you destroy it.

This must be well grasped: the world hangs on the thread of consciousness; no consciousness, no world.

A man who claims to know what is good for others, is dangerous.

Q: Do I exist in your world, as you exist in mine?
M: Of course, you are and I am. But only as points in consciousness; we are nothing apart from consciousness. This must be well grasped: the world hangs on the thread of consciousness; no consciousness, no world.
Q: There are many points in consciousness; are there as many worlds?
M: Take dream for an example. In a hospital there may be many patients, all sleeping, all dreaming, each dreaming his own private, personal dreams unrelated, unaffected, having one single factor in common—illness. Similarly, we have divorced ourselves in our imagination from the real world of common experience and enclosed ourselves in a cloud of personal desire and fears, images and thoughts, ideas and concepts.
Q: This I can understand. But what could be the cause of the tremendous variety of the personal worlds?
M: The variety is not so great. All the dreams are superimposed over a common world. To some extent they shape and influence each other. The basic unity operates in spite of all. At the root of it all lies self-forgetfulness; not knowing who I am.
Q: To forget, one must know. Did I know who I am, before I forgot it?
M: Of course. Self-forgetting is inherent in self-knowing. Consciousness and unconsciousness are two aspects of one life. They co-exist. To know the world you forget the self—to know the self you forget the world. What is world after all? A collection of memories. Cling to one thing, that matters, hold on to 'I am' and let go all else. This is sadhana. In realization there is nothing to hold on to and nothing to forget. Everything is known, nothing is remembered.

Spiritual Enlightenment or Spiritual Awakening

It is possible to find enlightenment in one's innermost consciousness. Enlightenment is the normal human condition unknown to most.

Enlightenment (spiritual) translates several Buddhist terms and concepts, most notably bodhi, kensho and satori. Related terms from Asian religions are moksha (liberation) in Hinduism, Kevala Jnana in Jainism and ushta in Zoroastrianism.