“Our bodies demand our attention; our bodies demand that we actually pay attention to what is going on with our lives.”
Source: The Sanity We Are Born With: A Buddhist Approach to Psychology
“Take a friendly attitude toward your thoughts.”
“Magic is the total delight (appreciation) of chance”
“By means of meditation, I feel that we have planted dynamite to transcend the world of confusion. So it would be good if you could practice meditation as much as you can, as much as physically and psychologically possible. You could become more clear and sane, and you could also influence the national neurosis in that way.”
Source: True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art
“The practice of meditation is a way of continuing one's confusion, chaos, aggression, and passion—but working with it, seeing it from the enlightened point of view.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Two: The Path Is the Goal; Training the Mind; Glimpses of Abhidharma; Glimpses of Shu nyata; Glimpses of Mahayana; Selected Writings
“When you drop your unnecessary things, you finally can swoop and fly in vast space. It is so blue, so bright, and so nice, so airy and fresh. You can stretch your wings and breathe the air. You can do anything you want. You have experienced cheerfulness and joy, and finally the bliss of freedom occurs in you.”
Source: The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness (volume 3): The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma, Volume Three
“The sun has a sense of all-pervasive brilliance, which does not discriminate in the slightest. It is the goodness that exists in a situation, in oneself, and in one's world, which is expressed without doubt, hesitation, or regret. The sun principle also includes the notion of blessings descending upon us and creating sacred world. It also represents clarity, without doubt.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Seven: The Art of Calligraphy (Excerpts); Dharma Art; Visual Dharma (Excerpts); Selecte d Poems; Selected Writings
“The point is that whatever one is trying to learn, it is necessary to have firsthand experience, rather than learning from books or from teachers or by merely conforming to an already established pattern.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume One: Born in Tibet; Meditation in Action; Mudra; Selected Writings
“meditation is a way of developing clarity, which allows us to see the precision of daily life situations as well as our thought process so that we can relate with both of them fully and completely.”
Source: Work, Sex, Money: Real Life on the Path of Mindfulness
“when one learns a different way of dealing with the situation, one no longer has to have a purpose. One is not on the way to somewhere. Or rather, one is on the way and one is also at the destination at the same time. That is really what meditation is for.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume One: Born in Tibet; Meditation in Action; Mudra; Selected Writings
“The point of meditation is not merely to be an honest or good person in the conventional sense, trying only to maintain our security. We must begin to become compassionate and wise in the fundamental sense, open and relating to the world as it is.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
“We have to make the first move ourselves rather than expecting it to come from the phenomenal world or from other people. If we are meditating at home and we happen to live in the middle of the High Street, we cannot stop the traffic just because we want peace and quiet. But we can stop ourselves, we can accept the noise. The noise also contains silence. We must put ourselves into it and expect nothing from outside, just as Buddha did. And we must accept whatever situation arises.”
“That is the basic pattern of this kind of meditation, which is based on three fundamental factors: first, not centralizing inward; second, not having any longing to become higher; and third, becoming completely identified with here and now.”
“If you are telling the truth, then you can speak gently, and your words will have power.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Eight: Great Eastern Sun; Shambhala; Selected Writings
“Meditation practice is regarded as a good and in fact excellent way to overcome warfare in the world; our own warfare as well as greater warfare.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Eight: Great Eastern Sun; Shambhala; Selected Writings
“For the warrior, every moment is a challenge to be genuine, and each challenge is delightful. When you let go properly, you can relax and enjoy the challenge.”
Source: Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior
“The epitome of the human realm is to be stuck in a huge traffic jam of discursive thought.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
“Generosity is self-existing openness, complete openness. You are no longer subject to cultivating your own scheme or project. And the best way to open yourself up is to make friends with yourself and with others.”
Source: Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness
“The attainment of enlightenment from ego's point of view is extreme death.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
“There is no such thing as talent, only awareness.”
“The past situation has just occurred and the future situation has not yet manifested itself so there is a gap between the two. This is basically the bardo (life between life) experience. [This is the place where your life is reviewed - where you get another chance to let life teach you and end the cycle of pain. -EM]”
“To be a spiritual warrior, one must have a broken heart; without a broken heart and the sense of tenderness and vulnerability, your warriorship is untrustworthy.”
“The experience of a sad and tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness. Conventionally, being fearless means that you are not afraid or that, if someone hits you, you will hit him back. But we aren't talking about that street-fighter level of fearlessness. Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world.”
“Disappointment results from the removal of illusion.”
“The simplicity of meditation means just experiencing the ape instinct of ego.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
“Whatever shakes you should without delay, right away, be incorporated into the path.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Two: The Path Is the Goal; Training the Mind; Glimpses of Abhidharma; Glimpses of Shu nyata; Glimpses of Mahayana; Selected Writings
“If you look into the mirror, you see that [every part of you] belongs there and you belong there, as you are. You begin to realize that you have a perfect right to be in this universe, to be this way, and you see that there is a basic hospitality that this world provides to you. You have looked and you have seen, and you don't have to apologize for being born on this earth.”
“we must continue to be open in the face of great opposition. No one is encouraging us to be open and still we must peel away the layers of the heart.”
“This whole world is mind's world, the product of the mind.”
“When there is no desire to satisfy yourself, there is no aggression or speed... Because there is no rush to achieve, you can afford to relax. Because you can afford to relax, you can afford to keep company with yourself, you can afford to make love with yourself, to be friends with yourself.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
“Opening to oneself fully is opening to the world.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
“When you experience your wisdom and the power of things as they are, together, as one, then you have access to tremendous vision and power in the world. You find that you are inherently connected to your own being. That is discovering magic.”
“Why don't we just expand ourselves into our perfect form, our perfect being?”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Four: Journey without Goal; The Lion's Roar; The Dawn of Tantra; An Interview with Cho gyam Trungpa
“Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy.”
Source: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
“The ideal of warriorship is that the warrior should be sad and tender, and because of that, the warrior can be very brave as well.”
Source: Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior
“We must begin our practice by walking the narrow path of simplicity, the hinayana path, before we can walk upon the open highway of compassionate action, the mahayana path.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
“It's easier to put on a pair of shoes than to wrap the earth in leather.”
“Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment.”
“The essence of warriorship, or the essence of human bravery, is refusing to give up on anyone or anything.”
Source: Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior
“...We leave our homeland, our property and our friends. We give up the familiar ground that supports our ego, admit the helplessness of ego to control its world and secure itself. We give up our clingings to superiority and self-preservation...It means giving up searching for a home, becoming a refugee, a lonely person who must depend on himself...Fundamentally, no one can help us. If we seek to relieve our loneliness, we will be distracted from the path. Instead, we must make a relationship with loneliness until it becomes aloneness.”
“Becoming "awake" involves seeing our confusion more clearly.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
“Delight in itself is the approach of sanity. Delight is to open our eyes to the reality of the situation rather than siding with this or that point of view.”
“Just fully being skillful involves total lack of inhibition. We are not afraid to be. We are not afraid to live. We must accept ourselves as being warriors. If we acknowledge ourselves as warriors, then there is a way in, because a warrior dares to be, like a tiger in the jungle.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
“When you relate to thoughts obsessively, you are actually feeding them because thoughts need your attention to survive. Once you begin to pay attention to them and categorize them, then they become very powerful. You are feeding them energy because you are not seeing them as simple phenomena. If one tries to quiet them down, that is another way of feeding them.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
“A great deal of the chaos in the world occurs because people don't appreciate themselves.”
“Whether we eat, sleep, work, play, whatever we do life contains dissatisfaction, pain. If we enjoy pleasure, we are afraid to lose it; we strive for more and more pleasure or try to contain it. If we suffer pain we want to escape it. We experience dissatisfaction all the time. All activities contain dissatisfaction or pain, continuously.”
Source: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
“Hold the sadness and pain of samsara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea.”
“Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Eight: Great Eastern Sun; Shambhala; Selected Writings
“In the process of burning out these confusions, we discover enlightenment. If the process were otherwise, the awakened state of mind would be a product dependent upon cause and effect and therefore liable to dissolution. Anything which is created must, sooner or later, die. If enlightenment were created in such a way, there would always be a possibility of ego reasserting itself, causing a return to the confused state. Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
“Are the great spiritual teachings really advocating that we fight evil because we are on the side of light, the side of peace? Are they telling us to fight against that other 'undesirable' side, the bad and the black. That is a big question. If there is wisdom in the sacred teachings, there should not be any war. As long as a person is involved with warfare, trying to defend or attack, then his action is not sacred; it is mundane, dualistic, a battlefield situation.”
Source: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
