Stairway to Heaven!

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche: Rainbow Painting

“People have the habit of thinking that something is bound to happen after practicing meditation a while – like going through school – that after ten or fifteen years you will end up with a degree. “I can make it happen. I can do enlightenment!”

“Not in this case though. You cannot make enlightenment, because enlightenment is
unconstructing. Realising the awakened state is a matter of being diligent in
allowing non-dual awareness to regain its natural stability. It is difficult to reach
enlightenment without such diligence, and without undertaking any hardship.

“…the very moment you open up in devotion, you receive blessings from the Buddhas. The dharmakaya of enlightened beings is like a butter lamp when the flame is burning brightly. The dharmakaya nature of a sentient being’s mind is like a butter lamp where the wick has not yet been lit. therefore, it is very important to allow the compassion and blessings of enlightened beings to enter us. The link between us and the state of enlightenment is faith and devotion. To simply think, “I will only worry about recognising mind essence” while not engendering any trust in the authentic enlightened state will not help us progress very much.

“To progress in the practice of recognising mind essence, it is exceedingly important to generate faith and devotion toward enlightened beings and compassion towards those who are not enlightened.”

The point is,
we have great abilities to push forward.
However, we need a stronger force
than our present, limited capacity
to pull us up the ‘stairs’!

We may ask, “Does this actually work?”
All I can say is, we can get some strange moments of inspiration!