Top 120 Sogyal Rinpoche Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Learning to live is learning to let go.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

2. “Tomorrow or the next life – which comes first, we never know.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

3. “The key to finding a happy balance in modern life is simplicity.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

Featured in: Simple Life Quotes, Quotes About Balance

4. “Samsara is the mind turned outwardly, lost in its projections. Nirvana is the mind turned inwardly, recognizing its true nature.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

5. “Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

6. “We may idealize freedom, but when it comes to our habits, we are completely enslaved.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

Featured in: Habit Quotes

7. “Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

8. “Meditation is bringing the mind home.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

9. “Our problems, all come from nothing; they are all based on a misunderstanding that does not even exist.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

10. “The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this lifetime.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

11. “There is no armor like perseverance.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

12. “Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

13. “Sitting like a mountain let your mind rise and fly and soar.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

14. “Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life reveals just the opposite: that letting go is the real path to freedom.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

15. “Our buddha nature is as good as any buddha’s buddha nature.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

16. “If the mind is not contrived, it is spontaneously blissful, just as water, when not agitated, is by nature transparent and clear.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

17. “If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

18. “Living with the immediacy of death helps you sort out your priorities in life. It helps you to live a less trivial life.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

19. “When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don’t actually “become” a buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

20. “We must never forget that it is through our actions, words, and thoughts that we have a choice.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

21. “Speak or act with a pure mind and happiness will follow.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

22. “Whatever we have done with our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything, counts.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

23. “What is born will die, What has been gathered will be dispersed, What has been accumulated will be exhausted, What has been built up will collapse, And what has been high will be brought low.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

24. “The whole of meditation practice can be essentialized into these 3 crucial points: Bring your mind home. Release. And relax!”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

25. “What we have to learn, in both meditation and in life, is to be free of attachment to the good experiences, and free of aversion to the negative ones.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

26. “The future is very much in our hands – in our actions.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

27. “When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

28. “In this complex world, the best way to survive is to be genuine.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

29. “The most essential thing in life is to establish an unafraid, heartfelt communication with others.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

30. “The definition of mantra is “that which protects the mind.” That which protects the mind from negativity, or that which protects you from your own mind, is called mantra.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

31. “True spirituality is to be aware that if we are interdependent with everything and everyone else, even our smallest, least significant thought, word and action have real consequences throughout the universe.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

32. “The absolute truth cannot be realized within the domain of the ordinary mind, and the path beyond the ordinary mind is the path of the heart.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

33. “The act of meditation is being spacious.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

34. “Just as the ocean has waves or the sun has rays, so the minds’s own radiance is its thoughts and emotions.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

35. “In the Buddhist approach, life and death are seen as one whole, where death is the beginning of another chapter of life. Death is the mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

36. “The spiritual journey is one of continuous learning and purification. When you know this, you become humble.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

37. “The purpose of meditation is to awaken in us the sky-like nature of mind, and to introduce us to that which we really are, our unchanging pure awareness, which underlies the whole of life and death.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

38. “Let the sky outside awake a sky inside your mind.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

39. “Just as if you put your finger into water, it will get wet, and if you put it into fire, it will burn, so if you invest your mind in the wisdom mind of the Buddhas, it will transform into their wisdom nature.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

40. “Just because we go through a difficult situation, it doesn’t mean that the future is predetermined. The future is very much in our hands, in our actions.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

41. “Once an old woman came to Buddha and asked him how to meditate. He told her to remain aware of every movement of her hands as she drew the water from the well, knowing that if she did, she would soon find herself in that state of alert and spacious calm that is meditation.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

42. “I can’t say it strongly enough; to integrate meditation in action is the whole ground and point and purpose of meditation.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

43. “There is only one way of attaining liberation and of obtaining the omniscience of enlightenment: following an authentic spiritual master.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

44. “Always recognize the dreamlike qualities of life and reduce attachment and aversion. Practice good-heartedness toward all beings. Be loving and compassionate, no matter what others do to you. What they will do will not matter so much when you see it as a dream. The trick is to have positive intention during the dream. This is the essential point. This is true spirituality.10.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

45. “Let your heart go out in spontaneous and immeasurable compassion.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

46. “That goodness is what survives death, a fundamental goodness that is in each and every one of us. The whole of our life is a teaching of how to uncover that strong goodness, and a training toward realizing it.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

47. “Taking impermanence truly to heart is to be slowly freed from the idea of grasping, from our flawed and destructive view of permanence, from the false passion for security on which we have built everything.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

48. “This dying forces you to look into yourself. And in this, compassion is the only way. Love is the only way.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

49. “What should we “do” with the mind in meditation? Nothing. Just leave it, simply, as it is.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

50. “And when you talk about realization, accomplishment for that matter enlightenment is that when you realize the fundamental essence of your mind.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche