Sayings of Chairman Tenpa

Run for the hills! The new year is imminent, and here comes that awful Mr. Know-It-All, with a catalog of quotations from the year just passed. See the look on his face? Think of this as sweeping out the old dust on New Year's Eve: a compendium of grab quotes from some of Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar's most popular posts of the Year of the Tiger. You can enjoy these or skip them entirely, as the case may be.

"If you expect things to look the way you expect them to look, you will miss the point that things look the way they arise." -- Asunder

"Appearances are not doing anything apart from their own nature. The deception is entirely our own doing. " -- The Approaching Moon of Good Fortune

"Beyond the good and bad of the kiss and the bruise is a reality that cannot be improved by virtue nor harmed by vice." -- Light and Shadow Flowers

"It is one thing to make determinations based on what is present, but quite another to make them based on what is absent." -- An Absence Stronger Than Time

"With respect to the practice of Dzogchen, I occasionally have this idea that Dzogchen is continuously practicing itself, and all that is required is for one to just relax into appreciation of that." -- When You Look Upon the Land 

"If you do not have confidence in your own past vows, you are living only the smallest and most nervous portion of your life. You are living timidly, and that is no way to live." -- One Fine Day

"Nobody likes the high hat treatment, you know? People might put up with it for a while, but in the end, it works against you." -- Missionaries, Carpetbaggers, Hijackers, and Honkies: Dharma in the West

"We talk a great deal about made-up childhood maladies such as 'attention deficit disorder,' and feed the kids drugs, but actually, it is the parents who have the attention deficit." -- Big Bird

"Our memories become like noisy neighbors, fighting in the upstairs apartment. For a while, they scream and throw things." -- Time and True Love 

"We have this tendency to look at practice in terms of "ease" or "difficulty," and limit ourselves thereby. In reality, what we see as ease or difficulty is actually an expression of bodhicitta's endurance in our mind-stream." -- Straying Into Occultism

"Whenever I see someone beat an animal, I do not become angry at them, or want to punish them, because those are exactly the thoughts they are experiencing." -- No Cruelty In the Name of Love

"In the West, it seems there is a problem distinguishing between the practice of Buddhism as a graded, inquisitional exercise in dialectics, and the pass-fail, snake-in-bamboo practice of Vajrayana." -- Ava for Example

"Every situation supplies its own instruction. At the very moment it is posited, every question embodies its own answer." -- The Echo In Empty Valley

"Long since the Bodhisattva's heart shattered into a trillion pieces, each with a helping gesture and a loving prayer, in the time it takes to say that prayer how many flowers of the forest are withered away?" -- The Flowers of the Forest

"When we stop naming Buddhist images as 'Buddhist images,' and view all images exactly as they are, then all images become thoroughly inexhaustible Buddhist images." -- Ordinary Mail

"Unless you come to understand them as self-liberated when they arise, the five poisons will kill you over and over and over again." -- In the Shadows of Sagebrush

"It is so much better to leave the present to itself, without having too many ideas." -- Letters From An Old Magician

"It is entirely possible to deceive one's self into thinking that one is a great bodhisattva, upholding one's noble, altruistic vows even at terrible cost to one's self, and therefore, anything one says, schemes, or does, is ultimately worth saying, scheming, or doing." -- The Rabbit Who Jumped Into the Fire

"Causes and conditions are unreliable companions. They whisper, across your shoulder, but when you turn around to see them, they are gone." -- Just Another Desert Rainbow

"When you remember the text but forget the source, it is as if you have forgotten everything." -- Gem Medicines

"The thing is not to go looking. Maybe the thing is to just wait out the intermission, without developing any opinions: no thumbs up, no thumbs down." -- Brand New Sun

"The cuckoo does not need to sing a long song to make his presence known." -- Cuckoo for Commentary

"It is like digging a very long tunnel, not knowing that it will eventually end at an impenetrable wall. You are quite busy, shoveling great quantities of dirt, and expending all sorts of energy." -- As Much As You Can Relax

"The essential element of Vajrayana is expression or fulfillment of bodhicitta." -- The Approaching Moon of Good Fortune

"When the very fact of any given situation negates any conceivably useful  question, the only thing left to do is make an offering of all forms appearing." -- One Hundred More Moon Reflections

"In one way, appearances seem limitless but in another way they seem utterly devoid of any quality whatsoever. So, if you are splashing heaven and hell all over appearances maybe you are making a mistake in all directions." -- Each One A Kiss Goodbye

"It is fruitless to beat yourself over the head for everything you think you have done 'wrong,' just as it is fruitless to pat yourself on the back for everything you think you have done 'right.'" -- Drive-By Dharma, or Learning to Embrace the Antinomian Willies

"The faded presence of the beings we destroy -- of the raw beauty we defile -- will reduce us as a nation, and as individuals, and we will be demons of our planet. In such event, whether we are to be pitied or feared is a question nobody wants to answer." -- Where the Streets Have No Name 

"High hopes are not guarantees. There are six cylinders in the average revolver. If you are lucky, you can put one bullet in one cylinder and squeeze the trigger five times with no problem. That sixth squeeze is going to be instructive. " -- Tibetan Roulette

"We are only awake in this human form a very short time. We have only a few potentially productive years, and then we pass away to take up some other form, some other potential." -- The Lathe of Time

"Nobody needs to map compassion. Nobody needs to guide the hand of original wisdom." -- Does Samsara Really Need Janitors?

"What is it that needs your protection in the constantly arising 'now' if not the very enemy you seek to defeat?" -- The Law of Cause and Effect Needs No Enforcement

"We stay here for each other: some by chance, some by vow, some by desire, some with ambition, some do not need a reason." -- Directly From the Center of My Heart

"Being a Buddhist doesn't give you somewhere else to go when impermanence does the shimmy and the monastery falls down. If something like that is going to unnerve you, just imagine the fun you will have when you drop dead." -- Nowhere Else to Go

"You can not cure one beclouded perception with another beclouded perception." -- It Isn't About 'Hail Mary'

"Everything is temporary. Even 'temporary' is temporary. You are already fine, but you are temporarily bewildered. Your temporary bewilderment will pass." -- Calling All Vidyadharas

"What if, instead of purification, we think in terms of non-dual freedom? What if your mind allows your mind some unprejudiced stillness?" -- Answering An Echo

"Thus, when we think of foundations, be these the foundations of temples or the foundations of philosophy, we do not think in ordinary terms of solutions or protections, simply because there is nothing to solve and nothing to protect." -- Thinking About Haspori

"In our delusional, disordered thinking about the sublime dharma, in which we absolutely fetter ourselves with religion at the expense of spirituality, we expend all sorts of time and energy dreaming about who is teaching who." -- Song Through the Window

"There comes a time when practicing Dharma must finally transcend hope and fear." -- Masks for the Retinue

"Failing to recognize the root cause of suffering, we are buffeted to and fro. Every drop of rain becomes another chapter in the book of imaginary storms." -- Cutting Out the Undergrowth

"The very first admonition that the dakini gives you, when she visits you, is the admonition to do no harm." -- Insulting the Dakini

"Whenever we attempt what we consider to be 'great works,' we are usually confronted with one or all of the three varieties of obstacle, and we then count this as a struggle to overcome something in order to achieve something else. It is worth considering if that approach itself is an obstacle." -- Stones and Flowers