Discriminating Awareness

The more you listen to your discriminating awareness, the more easily you will be able to change your negative moods yourself, see through them, and even laugh at them for the absurd dreams and ridiculous illusions that they are. 

--from Glimpse After Glimpse ...by Sogyal Rinpoche, August 

Face Your Mind

Face Your Mind

Meditation cuts through all the illusion, all the projection, all the confusion we have about others and mostly about ourselves. It is coming face-to-face with the mind and with what the mind is really about. Understanding leads to penetrating insight into the illusion we have created for ourselves. This leads to liberation from suffering and a coemergent manifestation of compassion and wisdom. But we do not see it as a goal. We let go of goals and we focus on the act of meditation.

–Rob Nairn, from What is Meditation?: Buddhism for Everyone (Shambhala Publications)

Trust Friends Over Illusions

Trust Friends Over Illusions

When those we’re closest to see through our illusions and point out our self-centered mistakes, we quickly get defensive, and if they don’t stop we may become quite angry or enraged. If we look at those arguments in which tempers flare and voices are raised, we’ll find that most are sparked by our feeling that someone else has injured the narcissistic image we cherish in our hearts. In those moments when a loved one’s words run contrary to our illusions, we must choose which we cherish more—the loved one or the illusions.

–Lorne Ladner, from The Lost Art of Compassion (HarperSanFrancisco)