[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: Sentient Beings Are Limitless

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

July 17, 2009

SENTIENT BEINGS ARE LIMITLESS

Sentient beings are limitless;
We vow to save them.
Maybe the world is filled with aggression, passion and ignorance
And other inconvenient kleshas, inconvenient emotions.
Still the dawn of sanity, and being skilled in working with others,
Will continue.
 
Let us drive further,
And work harder with gentleness,
To proclaim the dharma, the wisdom of the Buddha,
Throughout the universe.
If practitioners are like the bow,
Then devotion is like the bowstring.
Working for others with intelligence
Is the arrow, adorned with three feathers
Of threefold purity,
As well as the sharp point of doubtlessness.
Thus we perform such archery.
Let us go further, and shoot further.
Let us shoot in the atmosphere of the dharmadhatu, the space of dharma.
 

Excerpted, with slight changes, from "Sad Archer Shoots Happily by Gazing at the Splendid Moon,"  an unpublished poem composed 14 November 1981 at the Keltic Lodge, Ingonish, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

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Teachings by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, taken from works published by Shambhala Publications,  the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.

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