Merit is not an easy concept for Westerners to understand.

In one way, however, it is simple.

When you act with compassion, free from anger, that is merit.

When you make a gift freely, or cultivate peace within yourself, or for others, that is merit.

When you care for another; showing your love, helping them heal, that is merit.

When you devote your efforts to transforming the suffering of the world, the pollution of the planet, and the inner toxicity that plagues us all, you are manifesting the power of merit.

Whatever you do out of goodness is a manifestation of merit. 

Challenging Journey, Creative Journey

The point is to appreciate each moment as fully as possible—whatever comes.

This does not mean that we forget the future, but it does mean that the goal, the fruit, is already here.

We could spend our whole lives slowly starving to death, selling the present for the future and getting nothing nourishing in return.

But we can also do it differently.

Through a refined searching and inquiry, through watching our own minds, we can learn great lessons.

The silent space between thoughts is always available. The unborn is always there, and ‘there’ is not a place.

 Footsteps on the Diamond Path 

How present are you to your own experience?

It’s a reasonable question to ask.

If the way you see the world is based on labels mind assigns, does that mean that labels come between you and experience, and you are not really present at all? 

Gesture of Great Love 

Whatever you feel while meditating, let it be.

You do not need to change anything or push anything away.

Rest in a state where there are no instructions, nothing to do.

Whatever is happening does not belong to you, so you do not need to hold on to it or name it.

Stay open and you will be kissed by space. 

Gesture of Great Love 

Is it not possible for us to look within and appreciate ourselves, rather than continuing to look outside ourselves for fulfillment?

When we find inspiration, openness, and balance within, then our lives become genuinely happy and worthwhile—we can find happiness even in our work.

Instead of wasting our energy and human potential in useless thoughts and actions, we begin to act constructively, for the basis of the spiritual path is the development in ourselves of what is truly balanced, natural, and meaningful. 

Gesture of Balance 

Sustaining our faith and trust is one of the most important parts of developing a spiritual life.

Anyone can sustain an interest for a short period of time or even for a year or two, but the more complex and conflicting the world becomes, the more difficult it is to survive spiritually—to survive internally—because everything seems to lure us away from meditation and inner calm, from our sense of inner strength and wisdom.  

Tibetan Meditation

After an emotion has already surfaced, there are two ways to deal with it.

One is to objectify the emotional response by blaming someone or something for the way you feel.

This way reinforces and escalates negative feelings.

The other choice is to go directly into the emotion, become it, discover it, feel it thoroughly, and calmly watch its nature.

Rather than ask why, observe how the emotion arises.

Instead of trying to push the emotion away, befriend it.

If you watch carefully, without involvement, you will see this emotion manifest in both body and mind and then dissolve into pure energy. 

Hidden Mind of Freedom 

What intimacy,

what closeness,

what caring

can we expect

when we all conceal our real being? 

Knowledge of Freedom

Whenever we inquire deeply into our nature, we may reach the same conclusion: we cannot know.

The meanings we create and rely on cannot bear true witness.

That is why the great teachers of the past have said, “Why do you chase after understanding? Why do you need to prove something?

Instead, create ease.

Ease your concepts and your thoughts, ease your intellectualization and your looking.

Give up on forcing experience into pigeon holes, whether you follow the path of the intellect or the path of meditation. 

Creative Journey 

Compassion is a healthy psychological attitude, because it does not involve expectations or demands.

Even if we are not able to accomplish very much on a physical level, at least can have the desire to be a loving person with a compassionate heart—the wish to help others, spontaneously, with no reservations.

This attitude automatically opens our hearts and develops our compassion.

Then we can sincerely say to ourselves, “If there is any way I can learn to increase my compassion or understanding of humanity, then I wish to receive that teaching—wherever it exists—and take the responsibility to use that knowledge to help others.

Tibetan Meditation