Legacy of Shambhala Providence

06/23/2026

Helping Others to Hear

Milarepa is a great Tibetan Buddhist saint who wrote many brilliant songs of meditative realization. He is often shown cupping his right hand over his ear, listening to himself singing his own song. By cupping his hand to his ear, he can hear his own voice singing the melody and the words of the song.

Altogether, listening is a sense of personal inquisitiveness, which brings a sense of satisfaction. At least you can hear the music!

We have to help others who cannot hear. We can help them by providing a sense of joy. We can say to others, “Experiencing the world is not all that bad, my dear friend. The world is not all that terrorized by passion, aggression, or ignorance.” We’re trying to cheer up the rest of the world — including ourselves!

From “Attaining the Higher Realms,” in Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala, page 127 to 128.

06/23/2026

June 23

Think of the moment of death as a strange border zone of the mind, a no-man’s land in which, on one hand, if we do not understand the illusory nature of our body, we might suffer vast emotional trauma as we lose it, and on the other we are presented with the possibility of limitless freedom, a freedom that springs precisely from the absence of that very same body.

When we are at last freed from the body that has defined and dominated our understanding of ourselves for so long, the karmic vision of one life is completely exhausted, but any karma that might be created in the future has not yet begun to crystallize.

So what happens in death is that there is a “gap,” or space, that is fertile with vast possibility; it is a moment of tremendous, pregnant power where the only thing that matters, or could matter, is how exactly the mind is. Stripped of a physical body, the mind stands naked, revealed startlingly for what it has always been: the architect of our reality.

06/22/2026

06/22/2026

June 22

What really matters is not just the practice of sitting but far more the state of mind you find yourself in after meditation. It is this calm and centered state of mind you should prolong through everything you do. I like the Zen story in which the disciple asked his master:

“Master, how do you put enlightenment into action? How do you practice it in everyday life?”
“By eating and by sleeping,” replied the master.
“But Master, everybody sleeps and everybody eats.”
“But not everybody eats when they eat, and not everybody sleeps when they sleep.”

From this comes the famous Zen saying, “When I eat, I eat; when I sleep, I sleep.”

To eat when you eat and sleep when you sleep means to be completely present in all your actions, with none of the distractions of ego to stop you from being there. This is integration.

06/21/2026

June 21

Imagine vividly a situation where you have acted badly, one about which you feel guilty, and about which you wince even to think of it.

Then, as you breathe in, accept total responsibility for your actions in that particular situation, without in any way trying to justify your behavior. Acknowledge exactly what you have done wrong, and wholeheartedly ask for forgiveness. Now, as you breathe out, send out reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, and understanding.

So you breathe in blame, and breathe out the undoing of harm; you breathe in responsibility, breathe out healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

This exercise is particularly powerful and may give you the courage to go to see the person whom you have wronged, and the strength and willingness to talk to him or her directly and actually ask for forgiveness from the depths of your heart.

06/20/2026

June 20

When you have fully recognized that the nature of your mind is the same as that of the master, from then on you and the master can never be separate, because the master is onewith the nature of your mind, always present, as it is.

When you have recognized that the master and you are inseparable, an enormous gratitude and sense of awe and homage is born in you. Dudjom Rinpoche calls this “the homage of the View.” It is a devotion that springs spontaneously from seeing the View of the nature of mind.

06/19/2026

June 19

Whatever you do, don’t shut off your pain; accept your pain and remain vulnerable. However desperate you become, accept your pain as it is, because it is in fact trying to hand you a priceless gift: the chance of discovering, through spiritual practice, what lies behind sorrow.

“Grief,” Rumi wrote, “can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.”

06/18/2026

June 18

Since pure awareness of nowness is the real buddha,
In openness and contentment I found the Lama in my heart.
When we realize this unending natural mind is the very nature of the Lama,
Then there is no need for attached, grasping, or weeping prayers or artificial complaints,
By simply relaxing in this uncontrived, open, and natural state,
We obtain the blessing of aimless self-liberation of whatever arises.

DUDJOM RINPOCHE

06/17/2026

A Gesture of Kindness

What you do for yourself—any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself—will affect how you experience your world. In fact, it will transform how you experience the world. What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself. When you exchange yourself for others in the practice of tonglen, it becomes increasingly uncertain what is out there and what is in here.

Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chodron, page 33