Lama Yeshe Quotes

There is no miserable place waiting for you, no hell realm, sitting and waiting like Alaska—waiting to turn you into ice cream. But whatever you call it—hell or the suffering realms—it is something that you enter by creating a world of neurotic fantasy and believing it to be real. It sounds simple, but that's exactly what happens.

When you’re among peaceful, generous, happy people, you’re inclined to feel happy and peaceful yourself. When you’re among angry, aggressive people, you tend to become like them. The human mind is like a mirror. A mirror does not discriminate but simply reflects whatever’s before it, no matter whether it’s horrible or wonderful.

The moment you identify yourself as something, you are already something else.

A great deal of our suffering arises because we are conflicted about reputation. Instead of being concerned about the reality of what we are, we’re concerned about what other people think of us. We’re too outward looking. That’s incredible. As far as Buddhism is concerned, that’s a sick mind; totally, clinically sick.

That also doesn’t mean that your mind should be closed to other religions. You can study any religion; you can check it out. The problem is that when you choose one particular religion, you get too extreme about its ideas and then put other religions and philosophies down. This happens because you don’t know the purpose of religion, why it exists or how to practice. If you did, you’d never feel insecure about other religions.

Tantra considers it very important to eradicate such symptoms of ego. There is no point in holding garbage-concepts of yourself. You are perfect; you just need to recognize it. According to tantra, you do not need to wait until your next life to experience heaven.

The fact that we believe we are such narrow limited energy already begins to suffocate us. We are suffocating because we have a suffocating attitude.

Don’t think about Buddhist terminology; don’t think about what the books say or anything like that. Just ask yourself simply, “How, at this moment, do I interpret myself?” That’s all.

If the religion you are practicing is a true path and gives satisfactory answers to your dissatisfied mind, you should be better than ever at dealing with your everyday life and living like a decent human being.

I’m saying that if you want to be happy, eradicate your attachment; cut your concrete concepts. The way to cut them is not troublesome—just change your attitude; switch your attitude, that’s all. It’s not really a big deal! It’s really skillful, reasonable. The way Buddhism explains this is reasonable. It’s not something in which you have to super-believe. I’m not saying you have to try to be a superwoman or superman. It’s reasonable and logical. Simply changing your attitude eliminates your concrete concepts.

Many people, even in this country, have material problems because they are concerned for only themselves. Even though society offers many good situations, they are still in the preta realm. I think so, isn’t it? You are living in America but you’re still living in the preta realm—of the three lower realms, the hungry ghost realm; you are still living in the hungry ghost realm.

Mind is like space because it has no limitation. When there are no clouds, when it is completely clear, space is like our "ordinary" state of mind. Then, all of a sudden, clouds come from nowhere. Our emotional problems and mental chaos are like the clouds. When they take over, we can't see space anymore, we only see the clouds. When they take over, we can't see space any more, we only see the clouds. However, space never goes away, it's always there. It's just our minds getting into darkness so that, for us, the clouds become our only reality. It means that we give more solidity to our emotional upheavals, to all the things going on in our minds, so that they become "real" for us than the true essence of the mind. And as we have a physical form, when we get very emotional, the end result may be tears rolling down our cheeks, just like rain falling form the clouds.

Q: What is nirvana and do many people attain it? Lama: When you develop your powers of concentration such that you can integrate your mind into single-pointed concentration, you will gradually diminish your ego’s emotional reactions until they disappear altogether. At that point, you transcend your ego and discover an everlasting, blissful, peaceful state of mind. That is what we call nirvana. Many people have attained this state and many more are well on their way to it.

This reminded me of the stories His Holiness Zong Rinpoche told about meditators who had achieved the illusory body. While they were sleeping at night, they would use their subtle body to read and memorize many scriptures at the same time. I thought that Lama was able to read so many texts in such a short time because he did it at night with the illusory body. From the way Lama talked so confidently about the many actions that a yogi could do with their subtle body, I could see that Lama himself had this power.

If you have a completely positive attitude about yourself and touch the pure nature of your fundamental reality, your negative projections disappear, and the world improves. Your environment becomes positive, more beautiful, and attractive. So instead of projecting a dangerous world beset by pollution, radiation, and poisoned resources, you project an incredibly beautiful landscape of trees and water and gentle human beings all helping one another, which gives you great pleasure. If you can interpret the world in that way, it will really become a pure land for you.

According to the Buddhist point of view, there is no human problem that cannot be solved by human beings.

The mind and the body are two distinct phenomena. Mind is defined as that which is clear and perceives objects. Like reflections appearing in a mirror, objects appear clearly to the mind, and the mind is able to recognize them. Whereas the body is substantial, the mind is formless, without color or shape. Whereas the body disintegrates after death, the mind continues from life to life. It is not uncommon to hear of people in both the East and the West who are able to remember past lives and to see future lives, not only their own but also those of others. Some are born with this capacity; others develop it through meditation. Some people can remember lives hundreds or thousands of years ago. When Lama Yeshe, who guided me for many years, visited the pyramids in Egypt, he was able to remember that he had lived there in a past life. The point is that even though many people do not believe in past and future lives, no one has actually proved that past and future lives do not exist. On the other hand, many people have realized that past lives exist because they remember them very clearly, just as we remember what we did yesterday. They realize the truth of reincarnation because they have the capacity of mind to see past and future lives.

The second half gave me a sense of much more freedom and security, looking deeper into more spiritual matters - and also joy, because joy comes from this. So I feel as though I've arrived in the right place. - Lama Yeshe Drolma

What gave me the greatest pleasure when I was young was exploring something - planning a journey, composing a song, going on a bike ride, making a poem. Now my greatest pleasure is showing what I've received, constantly sharing the dharma and seeing how it benefits others. - Lama Yeshe Drolma

You can never experience a moment of divorce from this naturally disposed, indwelling vision in the now, but through a failure of recognition it has become reified, like a natural flow of water frozen solid as ice. With the internal grasping mind as the cause and an external fixated object as the condition, you wander constantly in samsara.

Nonfixation is generosity; Homelessness is moral discipline; Unguardedness is patience; Nonstriving is perseverance; Nonthought is concentrated absorption; Referencelessness is perfect insight.

To be freely resting like a mountain is a measure of view; To be freely resting like an ocean is a measure of meditation; To be freely resting in appearances is a measure of conduct; To be freely resting in pure presence is a measure of fruition. The being that knows these four modes in full measure Knows the definitive meaning of the Great Perfection.

Kye! In pure presence, in the here and now, do not try to change anything, or to add or subtract anything; but without elaborating or concentrating, just let it be. Neither

Q: Could you please explain the relationship between meditation, enlightenment and supernormal mental powers, such as seeing the future, reading other people’s minds and seeing what’s happening in a place that’s far away? Lama: While it’s definitely possible to achieve clairvoyance through developing single-pointed concentration, we have a long way to go. As you slowly, slowly gain a better understanding of your own mind, you will gradually develop the ability to see such things. But it’s not that easy, where you meditate just once and all of a sudden you can see the future or become enlightened. It takes time.

It is never too late. Even if you are going to die tomorrow, Keep yourself straight and clear and be a happy human being today. If you keep your situation happy day by day, you will eventually reach the greatest happiness of enlightenment. – Lama Yeshe

Question: Lama, as I understand it, you said that the basic problem is that individuals lose touch with their own nature. How do we lose touch with our own nature? Why does it happen? Lama: One reason is that we are preoccupied with what’s going on outside of ourselves. We are so interested in what’s going on in the sense world that we do not take the time to examine what’s going on in our minds. We never ask ourselves why the sense world is so interesting, why things appear as they do, why we respond to them as we do. I’m not saying we should ignore the outside world, but we should expend at least an equal amount of energy analyzing our relationship with it. If we can comprehend the nature of both the subject and the object, then we can really put an end to our problems. You might feel that materially your life is perfect, but you can still ask yourself, “Does this really satisfy me? Is this all there is?” You can check your mind, “Where does satisfaction really come from?” If you understand that satisfaction does not depend only on external things, you can enjoy both material possessions and peace of mind.

the practice of tantra involves a combination of emptiness-yoga — through which all ordinary conceptions of one-self are dissolved — and deity-yoga — in which one cultivates the enlightened identity of a particular meditational deity.

Lama Yeshe says: I hope that you understand what the word “spiritual” really means. It means to search for, to investigate, the true nature of the mind. There’s nothing spiritual outside. My rosary isn’t spiritual; my robes aren’t spiritual. Spiritual means the mind, and spiritual people are those who seek its nature.4

The ego is the mind that misunderstands the nature of the I. We generally feel that the I exists somewhere vaguely within the body. To gain a correct picture of reality, it is necessary to investigate deeply and try to find out exactly where this I resides. When we make a thorough search for our self, looking throughout our entire body and nervous system, we can never find it. Sometimes we may think we have located it, but upon closer examination we can see that we have been deceived.