From Milk to Yoghurt: A recipe for living & dying

The Heart Wisdom series aims to make the teachings of Ringu Tulku Rinpoche available to a wider audience, by bringing his oral teachings to the written page. This volume brings together three talks by Ringu Tulku on the topics of Rebirth, Working with a Spiritual Teacher and Death and Dying; including calligraphies by Ringu Tulku on these themes.

'How do you make yoghurt? With milk. But is yoghurt, milk? It is not. Without milk, we cannot have yoghurt. But can we say that yoghurt is the same substance as the original milk? No, it is not the same. Our next life, or the next moment of this life - the next moment of change, the moment we move from one place to another or one instant to another - happens through a similar process. What I am now is not exactly what I would be in my next life. It is different, like yoghurt is different to milk. But if I was milk now, maybe, in the next life, I could become yoghurt.'