- The fastest route to uniqueness: do not strive to be original, don’t be afraid to be dull and uninteresting. You must have the courage to choose your fate despite the whole world, despite the mainstream and intellectual fads.
2. You don’t live to please immature minds. Remember, light will always disturb denizens of the dark.
3. The best, the most valuable, is hardest to hull out. Once hulled, it is hard to keep.
4. Opening up to life, an unconditional acceptance of what it brings, is not tantamount to the absence of rules. It doesn’t mean we can do anything we like. To be defenseless does not mean to be unable to control your life and yourself.
5. Pain and loneliness teach us the highest virtue – the ability to feel at one with the whole world.
6. Seek a solution. You’ll find a mistake.
7. The teacher is like poetry. He uses language to take you beyond its boundaries.
8. When the treasure is finally found, it turns out that the one who set out in search of it is no longer there.
9. If, during the day, there was a moment that carried the promise of something better, think back and capture its ray. By changing something in one tense, we change all three.
10. You cannot get rid of bad habits without reverting to good ones.
11. You have the freedom to do good and wonderful things. To do evil it is enough to submit yourself to the bondage of facts.
12. When we expose our heart, we feel pain, suffering. So be like heroes – intrepid, completely exposed.
13. All comes naturally only when both successes and failures mean nothing to you.
14. The only way to learn how to be with oneself is to be (alone) with oneself.
15. Thinking cannot solve any problems. Thinking is the cardinal problem.
16. With success comes responsibility for other people’s failures.
17. Don’t be ashamed to be a good person.
18. Don’t let your thoughts stray to something else, as something else does not exist. The present state of the world – a slice of evolution – is YOU! What you experience, the world, life, is 100% YOU. It is full, single, finished, complete – it just is, all at once. You cannot subtract anything, summarise anything or strip anything down. You can only unconditionally be-in-it! There is only one karma, as there is one mind.
19. Wish everyone well, especially your enemies. Give them the best that you have. This will pay off.
20. What is hidden deep down inside you is inviolable. It cannot be soiled or changed by anything. No matter how low it falls, the sparkle can always be illuminated.
21. Don’t be ashamed of what you have, of what is your life, your essence. The purpose is to fulfil your life, to come to a full understanding of how unique your life is.
22. You don’t follow a path to get somewhere.
23. The book of life is written without letters.
24. You cannot criticize or judge someone if you are not that person. If you became that person, would you still try to do it?
25. Even that which horrifies us most has no positive or negative value.
26. The worst comes after the worst and hurts nobody.
27. Everything – even the unthinkable – happens only because it is possible.
28. When you experience displeasure, feel deep fulfillment.
29. It is easier to mete out humiliation than to offer consolation.
30. An artist will die many times before he achieves anything.
These useless remarks were written down by Könchok Dorje in the Year of the Wood Sheep (2142), year of earthquakes, sounds and turmoil.
Translation by Miron Rusek.
Featured image of street art from England by NadinLisa, Germany.