Sunday, July 12, 2009

Milarepa quote

From pp. 476-477, from chapter 41 of The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa:

"The Ultimate Practice is not to consider
Distractions and drowsiness as faults.
Doing so to stave them off is like
kindling a lamp in bright daylight."

I like this quote because I've recently been thinking about how Padmasambhava doesn't get rid of demons, but "pins them down," and stares at them. The evolution of a meditater might be about making friends with your weaknesses and problems.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Perhaps his point is that recognizing such problems during meditation doesn't keep them from recurring. Instead, a mature meditator knows that there are various remedies that actually do work, as in raising the gaze, for instance, to prevent drowsiness.