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Always recognize the dreamlike qualities of life and reduce attachment and aversion. Practice good-heartedness toward all beings. Be loving and compassionate, no matter what others do to you. What they will do will not matter so much when you see it as a dream. The trick is to have positive intention during the dream. This is the essential point. This is true spirituality. 

The primary meditative technique of great perfection is remaining in the state of pure awareness. This is accomplished by calming the mind and then abiding in comprehension of its basic clear light nature. The meditative practice involves being cognizant of the arising and passing away of feelings, emotions, sensations, etc., but understanding them within the context of pure awareness. The more one does this, the more one realizes that all phenomena arise from mind and remerge into it. They are of the nature of pure awareness and are a projection of luminosity and emptiness. Through cultivating this understanding, mental phenomena of their own accord begin to subside, allowing the clear light nature of mind to become manifest. They appear as reflections on the surface of a mirror and are perceived as illusory, ephemeral, and nonsubstantial. Those who succeed in this practice attain a state of radical freedom: there are no boundaries, no presuppositions, and no habits on which to rely. One perceives things as they are in their naked reality. Ordinary beings view phenomena through a lens clouded by concepts and preconceptions, and most of the world is overlooked or ignored. The mind of the great perfection adept, however, is unbounded, and everything is possible. For many beginners, this prospect is profoundly disquieting, because since beginningless time we have been constricted by rules, laws, assumptions, and previous actions. One who is awakened, however, transcends all such limitations; there is no ground on which to stand, no limits, nothing that must be done, and no prohibitions. This awareness is bottomless, unfathomable, immeasurable, permeated by joy, unboundedness, and exhilaration. One is utterly free, and one's state of mind is as expansive as space. Those who attain this level of awareness also transcend physicality and manifest the "rainbow body" ('ja lus), a form comprising pure light that cannot decay, which has no physical aspects, and which is coterminous with the nature of mind. 

When we have really grasped the law of karma in all its stark power and complex reverberations over many, many lifetimes, and seen just how our self-grasping and self-cherishing, life after life, have woven us repeatedly into a net of ignorance that seems only to be ensnaring us more and more tightly; when we have really understood the dangerous and doomed nature of the self-grasping mind¡¯s enterprise; when we have really pursued its operations into their most subtle hiding places; when we have really understood just how our whole ordinary mind and actions are defined, narrowed and darkened by it, how almost impossible it makes it for us to uncover the heart of unconditional love, and how it has blocked in us all sources of real love and real compassion, then there comes a moment when we understand, with extreme and poignant clarity, what Shantideva said: If all the harmsFears and sufferings in the worldArise from self-grasping, What need have I for such a great evil spirit? And then a resolution is born in us to destroy that evil spirit, our greatest enemy. With that evil spirit dead, the cause of all our suffering will be removed, and our true nature, in all its spaciousness and dynamic generosity, will shine out.  

"Buddha was a human being, like you or me. He never claimed divinity, he merely knew he had the buddha nature, the seed of enlightenment, and that everyone else did too. The buddha nature is simply the birthright of every sentient being, and I always say: "Our buddha nature is as good as any buddha's buddha nature." 

The holy secret of the practice of Tonglen is one that the mystic masters and saints of every tradition know; and living it and embodying it, with the abandon and fervor of true wisdom and true compassion, is what fills their lives with joy. One modern figure who has dedicated her life to serving the sick and dying and who radiates this joy of giving and receiving is Mother Teresa. I know of no more inspiring statement of the spiritual essence of Tonglen than these words of hers: We all long for heaven where God is, but we have it in our power to be in heaven with Him at this very moment. But being happy with Him now means: Loving as He loves, Helping as He helps, Giving as He gives, Serving as He serves, Rescuing as He rescues, Being with Him twenty-four hours, Touching Him in his distressing disguise. 

Everything can be used as an invitation to meditation. A smile, a face in the subway, the sight of a small flower growing in the crack of cement pavement, a fall of rich cloth in a shop window, the way the sun lights up flower pots on a windowsill. Be alert for any sign of beauty or grace. Offer up every joy, be awake at all moments, to "the news that is always arriving out of silence." Slowly, you will become a master of your own bliss, a chemist of your own joy, with all sorts of remedies always at hand to elevate, cheer, illuminate, and inspire your every breath and movement.  

It is important to remember always that the principle of egolessness does not mean that there was an ego in the first place but the Buddhists did away with it. On the contrary, it means there was never any ego at all to begin with. To realize this is called "egolessness. "  

Six realms of existence are identified in Buddhism: gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hells. They are each the result of one of the six main negative emotions: pride, jealousy, desire, ignorance, greed, and anger. Looking at the world around us, and into our own minds, we can see that the six realms definitely do exist. They exist in the way we unconsciously allow our negative emotions to project and crystallize entire realms around us, and to define the style, form, flavor, and context of our life in those realms. And they exist also inwardly as the different seeds and tendencies of the various negative emotions within our psychophysical system, always ready to germinate and grow, depending on what influences them and how we choose to live. 

"Now let's look at ultimate reality," the Dalai Lama said, pointing a little finger to his mug. "What exactly is it? We're seeing color, shape. But if we take away shape, color, material, what is mug? Where is the mug? This mug is a combination of particles: atoms, electrons, quarks. But each particle is not 'mug.' The same can be said about the four elements, the world, everything. The Buddha. We cannot find the Buddha. So that's the ultimate reality. If we're not satisfied with conventional reality, if we go deep down and try to find the real thing, we ultimately won't find it."Thus, the Dalai Lama was saying, the mug is empty. The term "mug" is merely a label, something we use to describe everyday reality. But each mug comes into existence because of a complex web of causes and conditions. It does not exist independently. It cannot come into being by itself, of its own volition.For example: suppose I decide to make a black mug. To do this, I mix black clay and water, shape it to my liking, and fire the resulting mixture in an oven. Clay plus water turns into a mug because of my actions. But it exists because of the myriad different ways that atoms and molecules interact. And what about me, the creator of the black mug? If my parents had never met, the black mug might never have existed.Therefore the mug does not exist independently. It comes into being only through a complex web of relationships. In the Dalai Lama's own words, and this is the key concept in his worldview, the mug is "dependently originated." It came to be a mug because of a host of different factors, not under its own steam. It is empty. "Empty" is shorthand for "empty of intrinsic, inherent existence." Or to put it another way, empty is another word for interdependent.  

"Listening is a far more difficult process than most people imagine. Really to listen in the way that is meant by the masters is to let go utterly of ourselves, to let go of all the information, all the concepts, all the ideas, and all the prejudices that our heads are stuffed with. If you really listen to the teachings, those concepts, which are our real hindrance—the one thing that stands between us and our true nature—can slowly and steadily be washed away." 

Emphasizing neither renunciation nor transformation, though incorporating both into its preparatory practices, the Great Completeness privileges a method know as "self-liberation" (rang 'grol), sometimes described as "liberation in its own spot" (rang sar 'grol). Liberation takes place in the situation just as it is, because one's mind and all things are, despite powerful appearances to the contrary, primordially pure. If one has not yet made this essential discovery, the Great Bliss Queen ritual can prepare one for it. If one is familiar with the Great Completeness perspective, one performs the visualization and recitation of the Great Bliss Queen ritual entirely within an experience of innate awareness. In either case, the ritual encompasses the three nondualisms already discussed. One way of accessing the primordial purity so important to the Great Completeness tradition is a practice known as "pure vision." This involves visualizing companions, family, surroundings, and so forth as creations of light, the habitat of an enlightened being. From the viewpoint of the Great Completeness, such pure vision is not an imaginative overlay, but a move toward understanding things as they are. As Khetsun Sangpo taught it, this practice allows you to understand that apparently ordinary things and persons have "been [primordially pure] from the beginning" so that "you are identifying their own proper nature. Your senses normally misrepresent what is there, but through this visualization you can come closer to what actually exists." In short, by identifying one's body, companions, and world with those of the Great Bliss Queen, one develops the ability to discover what has always been there. This being so, there is no need to renounce or change anything, only to see it more completely. This is the Great Completeness tradition's special mix of ontological and cognitive nondualisms. Unlike the tantric traditions, in which it is necessary to cease the coarse sense and mental consciousness in order for the most subtle mind of clear light to appear, the Dalai Lama observes that "in the Old [Nyingma] Translation School of the Great Completeness it is possible to be introduced to the clear light without the cessation of the six operative consciousnesses. " Hence the possibility of "discovering" what is already in our midst. Such discovery reveals a spontaneous presence (yon dan hlun gyis grub ba) of collateral qualities such as clarity and spontaneous responsiveness. Thus, comments Longchen Rabjam, "primordially pure primordial wisdom is free in the face of thought and the primordial wisdom, with a nature of spontaneity, abides as primordial radiance, and profound clarity." 

After meditation, it's important not to give in to our tendency to solidify the way we perceive things. When you do re-enter everyday life, let the wisdom, insight, compassion, humor, fluidity, spaciousness, and detachment that meditation brought you pervade your day-to-day experience. Meditation awakens in you the realization of how the nature of everything is illusory and dreamlike. Maintain that awareness even in the thick of samsara. One great master has said: "After meditation practice, one should become a child of illusion."  

The King Milinda once asked the Buddhist sage Nagasena: "When someone is reborn, is he the same as the one who just died, or is he different?" Nagasena replied: "He is neither the same nor different... Tell me, if a man were to light a lamp, could it provide light the whole night long?" "Yes." "Is the flame then which burns in the first watch of the night the same as the one that burns in the second... or the last?" "No." "Does that mean there is one lamp in the first watch of the night, another in the second, and another in the third?" "No, it's because of that one lamp that the light shines all night." "Rebirth is much the same: One phenomenon arises and another stops, simultaneously. So the first act of consciousness in the new existence is neither the same as the last act of consciousness in the previous existence, nor is it different." 

The purpose of meditation is to awaken in us the skylike nature of mind, and to introduce us to that which we really are, our unchanging pure awareness that underlies the whole of life and death. In the stillness and silence of meditation, we glimpse and return to that deep inner nature that we so long ago lost sight of amid the busyness and distraction of our minds. 

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Often it is only when people suddenly feel they are losing their partner that they realize how much they love them. Then they cling on even tighter. But the more they grasp, the more the other person escapes them, and the more fragile the relationship becomes. 

In Tibet we say: "Negative action has one good quality: it can be purified." So there is always hope. Even murderers and the most hardened criminals can change and overcome the conditioning that led them to their crimes. Our present condition, if we use it skillfully and with wisdom, can be an inspiration to free ourselves from the bondage of suffering. 

When you have explored the great mystical traditions, choose one master and follow him or her. It's one thing to set out on the spiritual journey; it's quite another to find the patience and endurance, the wisdom, courage, and humility to follow it to the end. You may have the karma to find a teacher, but you must then create the karma to follow your teacher. For very few of us know how truly to follow a master, which is an art in itself. So however great the teaching or master may be, what is essential is that you find in yourself the insight and skill to learn how to love and follow the master and the teaching.

What the world needs more than anything is bodhisattvas, active servants of peace, "clothed," as Longchenpa said, "in the armor of perseverance, " dedicated to their bodhisattva vision and to the spreading of wisdom into all reaches of our experience. We need bodhisattva lawyers, bodhisattva artists and politicians, bodhisattva doctors and economists, bodhisattva teachers and scientists, bodhisattva technicians and engineers, bodhisattvas everywhere, working consciously as channels of compassion and wisdom at every level and in every situation of society; working to transform their minds and actions and those of others, working tirelessly in the certain knowledge of the support of the buddhas and enlightened beings for the preservation of our world and for a more merciful future. 

Why exactly are we so frightened of death that we avoid looking at it altogether? Somewhere, deep down, we know we cannot avoid facing death forever. We know, in Milarepa's words: "This thing called 'corpse' we dread so much is living with us here and now." 

...In the Buddhist teachings, when we search for the causes of suffering, we find what is called 'the truth of the origin of suffering', namely that negative actions - karma - and the negative emotions that induce such actions are the causes of suffering.Talking about causes, if we take a step further and investigate more deeply, we find that the cause alone is not sufficient for bringing about the results. Causes themselves have to come in contact with co-operative circumstances or conditions. For instance, say we search for a material or substantial cause for this plant, we will find that it has a continuity stretching back into beginningless time.There are certain Buddhist texts that speak of space particles, existing before the evolution of this present universe. According to these texts, the space particles serve as the material and substantial cause for matter, such as this plant. Now if the essential and substantial cause for matter is traced to these space particles, which are all the same, how do we account for the diversity that we see in the material world? It is here that the question of conditions and circumstances comes into play. When these substantial causes come in contact with different circumstances and conditions, they give rise to different effects, that is, different kinds of matter. So we find that the cause alone is not sufficient for bringing about a result. What is required is an aggregation of many different conditions and circumstances. Although you can find certain differences among the Buddhist philosophical schools about how the universe came into being, the basic common question addressed is how the two fundamental principles - external matter and internal mind or consciousness - although distinct, affect one another. External causes and conditions are responsible for certain of our experiences of happiness and suffering. Yet we find that it is principally our own feelings, our thoughts and our emotions, that really determine whether we are going to suffer or be happy.