#duality

The foundational Vajrakilaya is the sun shining in the sky behind the clouds. The path Vajrakilaya is the removal of the clouds from the sky through the force of wind and rain, or whatever; it is the path of method and wisdom, combined. And the resultant Vajrakilaya is the nature of your mind, the nature of your rigpa, which is the same mind as the mind of the primordial buddha, Kuntuzangpo. The path Vajrakilaya is the removal of the adventitious veil of obscuration that covers rigpa. Applying the method by practicing generation stage (kyerim) and completion stage (dzogrim), accumulating merit and purifying negative karma, removing that veil, is the path. The result is realizing that ones own self nature is buddha. So the result is the same as the foundation. In the beginning you are buddha, and in the end you are buddha. ↗

— Gyatrul Rinpoche

#nonduality #sun #tantra #vajrakilaya #nature

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#defiance #empowerment #independence #individuality #self-assurance

Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#jodi #loneliness #loner #self #society

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine. ↗

— Bruce Lee

#individuality #peer-pressure #wisdom #wisdom

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. ↗

— Augusten Burroughs

#individuality #true

In order to be irreplaceacle, one must always be different. ↗

— Coco Chanel

#different

The things that make me different are the things that make me. ↗

— A.A. Milne

#different

My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day. I told them this story: In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day. ↗

— Tom Waits

#individuality #music #musician #non-conformity #humor

Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else. ↗

— Judy Garland

#greatness #individuality #being

If we wish to know about a man, we ask 'what is his story--his real, inmost story?'--for each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us--through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives--we are each of us unique. ↗

— Oliver Sacks

#human-condition #humanity #individuality #uniqueness #perception