It is impossible to liberate others while you are bound. It is possible to liberate others when you are free.
– Buddha Shakyamuni
“If you learn not to react to the conditions, you will find that the conditions will change by themselves. But if you react to conditioning, by the very reaction, you’re causing the condition to inflate.
Because by reacting you say, ‘I want more of that’.”
~ Robert Adams
“The ultimate Way is simple and easy, yet profoundly deep. From the beginning it does not set up steps. Penetrate directly through to freedom and make it so that there is not the slightest obstruction at any time, twenty-four hours a day, with the realization pervading in all directions.
Then your heart will be clear, comprehending the present and the past. Picking up a blade of grass, you can use it for the body of Buddha; taking the body of the Buddha, you can use it as a blade of grass. From the first there is no superiority or inferiority, no grasping or rejection.
When your insight penetrates freely and its application is clear, then even in the middle of complexity and complication, you yourself can move freely without sticking or lingering anywhere. Thus, without setting up any rigid views or maintaining any state, respond freely: “when the wind blows, the grasses bend.”
~Yuan-wu (1063-1135)
“The Five Houses of Zen”
Everything which we see and everyone we relate to, we relate to from this tight box of our very limited judgements, prejudices, ideas, conceptions. It’s like we’re in a very small prison cell, dungeon really. And so we begin to start a new kind of direction in our lives … but the important thing is not to end up going from one prison cell into another prison cell. Even if the new prison cell has nice decoration on the wall and burns incense. It’s still a prison cell. And always the question is how to go beyond the prison, how to get out, how to be liberated.
– Tenzin Palmo
Once you have been struck by the pointlessness of letting yourself be forever influenced and conditioned by your habitual tendencies, you will become sick of it… That will inspire you to strive towards liberation, and by striving for it, you will attain it.
Samsara will never just disappear on its own. You must want to get rid of it actively yourself.
—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
The practitioner of self-liberation is like an ordinary person as far as the way in which the thoughts of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, manifest themselves as creative energy. However, the ordinary person, taking these really seriously and judging them as acceptable or rejecting them, continues to get caught up in situations and becomes conditioned by attachment and aversion.
Not doing this, a practitioner, when such thoughts arise, experiences freedom: initially, by recognizing the thought for what it is, it is freed just like meeting a previous acquaintance; then it is freed in and of itself, like a snake shedding its skin; and finally, thought is freed in being unable to be of benefit or harm, like a thief entering an empty house.
– Patrul Rinpoche
quoted in the book “You Are the Eyes of the World”
“Buddhism teaches that joy and happiness arise from letting go. Please sit down and take an inventory of your life. There are things you’ve been hanging on to that really are not useful and deprive you of your freedom. Find the courage to let them go.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
From generosity comes wealth;
happiness from ethical conduct.
From patience comes beauty;
splendor from joyous effort.
Through concentration comes peace;
from wisdom comes liberation.
Compassion accomplishes all aims.
—Nagarjuna, Precious Garland
The root of all happiness is the mind; the root of all suffering is the mind. The root of all afflictions and the root of all faith, devotion, love and compassion come down to the mind. If we know the nature of our mind, we can make use of the great treasure and eventually gain perfect happiness and the ultimate result of liberation and omniscience.
– Thrangu Rinpoche
Source: All | Great Middle Way
greatmiddleway.wordpress.com
Oct 2, 2017
All living beings —whether born from eggs,
from the womb, from division, or spontaneously;
whether they have form or do not have form;
whether they are aware or unaware,
whether they are not aware or not unaware—
eventually, I will lead all living beings to the final Nirvana,
the true ending of the cycle of birth and death.
And when all these living beings, in their unfathomable,
infinite number, have all been liberated,
in truth, not even a single being has actually been liberated.
—Buddha Shakyamuni, Diamond Sutra
~ Thich Nhat Hanh.
Source: This Is Liberation | Great Middle Way
greatmiddleway.wordpress.com
Liberation is not a place, another realm, or a destination.
It is an uprooting of the emotional afflictions in my mind,
so that they never arise in the future
and are purified within the expanse of suchness.
“Once the seeds are scorched, the fruit cannot arise.”
The final result of the exhaustion of the afflictive emotions
of the three realms of cyclic existence
is simply stainless awareness . This is liberation.
―Jetsun Taranatha
Source: Not A Place, A Realm, Or Destination | Great Middle Way
greatmiddleway.wordpress.com
Liberation is not a place, another realm, or a destination.
It is an uprooting of the emotional afflictions in my mind,
so that they never arise in the future
and are purified within the expanse of suchness.
“Once the seeds are scorched, the fruit cannot arise.”
The final result of the exhaustion of the afflictive emotions
of the three realms of cyclic existence
is simply stainless awareness . That is liberation.
―Jetsun Taranatha
Zen Flash 
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