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Quote by Robert A.F. Thurman

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The Jewel Tree of Tibet: The Enlightenment Engine of Tibetan Buddhism

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Robert A.F. Thurman

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“We are being developed by what we have done, and what we do, not only physically and verbally, but mentally also. What we now do in mind and speech and body will determine how we will become. The different forms and idiosyncrasies of all beings and things – all worlds in fact – depend on this inexorable causality of evolutionary action, or karma. Karma is not mysterious. Karma doesn‘t mean „fate“, although in a way it occupies the place of fate. Karma means „evolution, evolutionary causality.“ (Pages 79-80)”

BuddhismEnlightenmentAwakeningKarmaThe Path Of The Bodhisattva
Book:The Jewel Tree of Tibet: The Enlightenment Engine of Tibetan Buddhism
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“The literal meaning of guru yoga is ‘union with the teacher´s nature’. To blend your mind with the teacher’s mind is the most profound of all practices, and the shortest path of realization. It is the life force of the path and the one practice that includes all others. It was through relying on a spiritual teacher that all the bodhisattvas of the past generated the mind of enlightenment and reached perfection.”

BuddhismEnlightenmentAwakeningThe Path Of The BodhisattvaGuru Yoga
Book:The Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones: The Practice of View, Meditation, and Action: A Discourse Virtuous in the Beginning, Middle, and End
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“Those who practice the Dharma of the Mahayana in accordance with the Buddha's intention are known as bodhisattvas. If you practice the teachings of the Mahayana, you can reach the level of the great bodhisattvas Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri, in the best case, or become like the Buddha's two main disciples Shariputra and Maudgalyayana, who were gifted with insight and miraculous powers. Even if you are unable to practice to the full in this life, you will at least be reborn among the principal disciples of the future Buddha, Maitreya. The buddhas being those who have totally conquered the enemies of ignorance and the other emotions, they are often referred to by the synonym 'Victorious Ones,' while bodhisattvas, in many texts including the Tibetan original of the root verses of these teachings, are called 'children of the Victorious Ones'. Who, then, are the children of the buddhas? In the case of Buddha Shakyamuni, the child of his body was his physical son, Prince Rahula. The children of his speech were all those who heard him teach and attained the level of arhart - the great beings such as Shariputra, Maudgalayana, the sixteen arhats and others, who became the holders of his teachings. Above all, the children of the buddha's mind are the great bodhisattvas like Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri, who carry out their noble intention to bring all beings to enlightenment. For, just as a great monarch with a thousand children would choose the one with the most perfect qualities to be his heir, so, too, a buddha regards as his authentic heirs the bodhisattvas who have perfected the union of wisdom and compassion.”

BuddhismEnlightenmentAwakeningDharmaThe Path Of The BodhisattvaWisdom And Compassion
Book:The Heart of Compassion: The Thirty-seven Verses on the Practice of a Bodhisattva
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“I often refer to the great mythologist and American author Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) in this book. He used the designation of „hero“ to describe individuals who embark on the monumental psychological task of expanding and evolving consciousness and famously charted this journey. This hero‘s journey begins in our inherent state of blindness, separation, and suffering and progresses on a circular (as opposed to linear) route made up of stages shared by myths and legends spanning all cultures and epochs. From Buddha to Christ, Arjuna to Alice in Wonderland, the hero‘s journey is one of passing through a set of trials and phases: seeking adventure, encountering mentors, slaying demons, finding treasure, and returning home to heal others. Tibetan Buddhism‘s and Campbell‘s descriptions of the hero both offer a travel-tested road map of a meaningful life, a path of becoming fully human – we don‘t have to wander blindly, like college kids misguidedly hazed by a fraternity, or spiritual seekers abused in the thrall of a cult leader. The hero archetype is relevant to each of us, irrespective of our background, gender, temperament, or challenges, because we each have a hero gene within us capable of following the path, facing trials, and awakening for the benefit of others. Becoming a hero is what the Lam Rim describes as taking full advantage of our precious human embodiment. It‘s what Campbell saw as answering the call to adventure and following our bliss – not the hedonic bliss of chasing a high or acquiring more stuff, but the bliss of the individual soul, which, like a mountain stream, reaches and merges with the ocean of universal reality. (p. 15)”

BuddhismHeroEnlightenmentAwakeningThe Path Of The BodhisattvaJoseph CampbellHeroes JourneyLam RimHero Archetype
Book:Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human
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“Just as a snake sheds its skin, so too do we relinquish actions, words, and views that compose our current life of misery and longing so we can be reborn as a Bodhisattva Hero, a child of the Buddhas. Are you ready to let go? (p. 97)”

BuddhismEnlightenmentAwakeningDharmaSpiritual TransformationThe Path Of The Bodhisattva
Book:Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human
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“If you have never walked a mile in someone’s shoes, do not mock the soars on his feet.”

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Author:Matshona Dhliwayo
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“Like many others of the younger generation, for Magda and Fritz the last years of the sixties were the utopian meaning of paradise on earth, the more so for Magda who had graduated with honours. She had based a part of her thesis on the philosophical perspective of the Expressionist movement, particularly what the philosopher Nietzsche wrote in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which, amongst other things, he stated: ''What does my shadow matter?... Let it run after me!... I shall out-run it...'' And that's what Magda wanted to do with her life: declare herself independent from conventional thought and from past memories.”

PhilosophyLiteratureParis1960sNietzscheFriedrich NietzscheExpressionismZarathustraThus Spoke ZarathustraMaltese
Book:Memories of Recurrent Echoes
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“Such was also the case with Nietzsche, a volcanic genius if ever there was one. Here, too, there is passionate exteriorization of an inward fire, but in a manner that is both deviated and demented; we have in mind here, not the Nietzschian philosophy, which taken literally is without interest, but his poetical work, whose most intense expression is in part his ‘Zarathustra’. What this highly uneven book manifests above all is the violent reaction of an a priori profound soul against a mediocre and paralyzing cultural environment; Nietzsche’s fault was to have only a sense of grandeur in the absence of all intellectual discernment. ‘Zarathustra’ is basically the cry of a grandeur trodden underfoot, whence comes the heart-rending authenticity – grandeur precisely – of certain passages; not all of them, to be sure, and above all not those which express a half-Machiavellian, half-Darwinian philosophy, or minor literary cleverness. Be that as it may, Nietzsche’s misfortune, like that of other men of genius, such as Napoleon, was to be born after the Renaissance and not before it; which indicates evidently an aspect of their nature, for there is no such thing as chance.”

RenaissanceNietzscheThus Spoke Zarathustra
Book:To Have a Center
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