waking up

Ordinary Saints

"A saint in the Buddhist context...is someone who provides an example of the fact that completely ordinary, confused human beings can wake themselves up; they can put themselves together and wake themselves up through an accident of life of one kind or another. The pain, the suffering of all kinds, the misery and the chaos that are part of life, begins to wake them, shake them.

Having been shaken, they begin to question: "Who am I? What am I? What is happening" Then they go further and realize that there is something in them that is asking these questions, something that is, in fact, intelligent and not exactly confused." - Rinpoche