Looking at the world today, we might easily forget that the main purpose of our life - you could call it the heart of being human - is to be happy. All of us share the same wish, and the same right, to seek happiness and avoid suffering. Even following a spiritual path, or the religious life, is a quest for happiness.
Sogyal RinpocheI remember how people would often come to see my master Jamyang Khyentse simply to ask for his guidance for the moment of death. He was so loved and revered throughout Tibet, especially in the eastern province of Kham, that some would travel for months on end to meet him and get his blessing just once before they died. All my masters would give this as their advice, for this is the essence of what is needed as you come to die: "Be free of attachment and aversion. Keep your mind pure. And unite your mind with Buddha."
Sogyal RinpocheWe often wonder: "How will I be when I die?" The answer to that is that whatever state of mind we are in now, whatever kind of person we are now, that's what we will be like at the moment of death, if we do not change. This is why it is so absolutely important to use this lifetime to purify our mindstream, and so our basic being and character, while we can.
Sogyal RinpocheThe most essential thing in life is to establish an unafraid, heartfelt communication with others.
Sogyal RinpocheThere would be no chance at all of getting to know death if it happened only once. But fortunately, life is nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change. Every time I hear the rush of a mountain stream, or the waves crashing on the shore, or my own heartbeat, I hear the sound of impermanence. These changes, these small deaths, are our living links with death. They are death's pulses, death's heartbeat, prompting us to let go of all the things we cling to.
Sogyal Rinpoche