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The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings

Book by Chogyam Trungpa · 30 quotes · Ifs, Ego, Situation

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The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings Quotes

“Right mindfulness does not simply mean being aware; it is like creating a work of art. You can therefore trust what you are doing; you are not threatened by anything. You have room to dance in the space, and this makes it a creative situation. The space is open to you.”

MeanDoeArtSpaceRoomsSituationCreativeMindfulnessCreatingWorks Of ArtThreatenedDoing You
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“In fact, a person always finds when he begins to practice meditation that all sorts of problems are brought out. Any hidden aspects of your personality are brought out into the open, for the simple reason that for the first time you are allowing yourself to see your state of mind as it is.”

MindFirstsPersonsStatesReasonFactsProblemSimplePracticeMeditationPersonalityFirst TimeAspectAllowingState Of Mind
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“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.”

WorldTryingPersonsWiseMeditationHonestSecurityHonestyFundamentalsCompassionateConventionalGood Person
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“The epitome of the human realm is to be stuck in a huge traffic jam of discursive thought.”

HumansHugeStuckRealmsTrafficJamEpitomeTraffic Jam
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“The attainment of enlightenment from ego's point of view is extreme death.”

ViewsEgoEnlightenmentExtremesPoint Of ViewEnlightenedAttainment
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“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.”

DesireCompanyAchieveLove YouSpeedRelaxAggressionMaking Love
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“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.”

ActionWalksPracticePathWalkingSimplicityCompassionateHighwaysNarrow Path
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“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.”

IfsWayAcceptingDareWarriorAcknowledgeNot AfraidTigersJungleSkillfulInhibitions
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“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.”

IfsWayNeedsTryingEnergySimplePowerfulPayAttentionSeeingQuietRelatePay AttentionFeedingAnother WayVery Powerful
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“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.”

IfsWayMindStatesWould BeDiesCausesProcessEffectsPossibilityProductsReturnEgoEnlightenmentConfusionBurningPermanentConfusedDependentState Of MindSooner Or LaterAwakenedCause And EffectLiableDissolution
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“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.”

IfsShouldTryingPersonsLongWarBigsLightActionSpiritualFightingEvilSidesBlackSituationTeachingInvolvedSacredWarfareMundaneDualityBattlefieldsAdvocatingBig QuestionsUndesirableGreat SpiritualSpiritual Teaching
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“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.”

TryingPersonsLongActionSituationInvolvedSacredWarfareMundaneDualityBattlefields
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.”

IfsSilenceBuildingCrescendo
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“If you are involved with the intensity of crescendo situations, with the intensity of tragedy, you might begin to see the humor of these situations as well. As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.”

IfsWellsMightSilenceSituationBuildingInvolvedTragedyIntensityCrescendo
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“We could say that compassion is the ultimate attitude of wealth: an anti-poverty attitude, a war on want. It contains all sorts of heroic, juicy, positive, visionary, expansive qualities. And it implies larger scale thinking, a freer and more expansive way of relating to yourself and the world.”

ThinkingWorldWayWantWarWealthAttitudeQualityCompassionPovertyUltimateScalesHeroicVisionariesJuicy
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“Free passion is radiation without a radiator, a fluid, pervasive warmth that flows effortlessly. It is not destructive because it is a balanced state of being and highly intelligent. Self-consciousness inhibits this intelligent, balanced state of being. By opening, by dropping our self-conscious grasping, we see not only the surface of an object, but we see the whole way through.”

WaySelfStatesWholePassionConsciousnessObjectsConsciousFlowIntelligentSurfaceOpeningBuddhistDestructiveWarmthRadiationBalancedDroppingFluidSelf ConsciousSelf ConsciousnessGraspingHighly Intelligent
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“Anything that is created must sooner or later die. Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it.”

DiesEnlightenmentBuddhistPermanentSooner Or Later
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“Disappointment is a good sign of basic intelligence. It cannot be compared to anything else: it is so sharp, precise, obvious, and direct. If we can open, then we suddenly begin to see that our expectations are irrelevant compared with the reality of the situations we are facing.”

IfsRealitySituationExpectationsDirectDisappointmentObviousPreciseIrrelevant
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“We must be willing to be completely ordinary people, which means accepting ourselves as we are without trying to become greater, purer, more spiritual, more insightful. If we can accept our imperfections as they are, quite ordinarily, then we can use them as part of the path. But if we try to get rid of our imperfections, then they will be enemies, obstacles on the road to our ‘self-improvement’.”

PeopleIfsTryingMeanSelfUseSpiritualAcceptingEnemyPathGreaterWillingSelf ImprovementOrdinaryObstaclesImprovementInsightfulImperfectionOrdinary People
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“Mindfulness is like a microscope; it is neither an offensive nor defensive weapon in relation to the germs we observe through it. The function of the microscope is just to clearly present what is there.”

MindfulnessWeaponsFunctionRelationOffensiveGermsMicroscopes
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“You do not have to force yourself to do anything at all. There is a continual exchange, a continual dance. It is similar to the sun shining and plants growing. The sun has no desire to create the vegetation; plants simply react to sunlight and the situation develops naturally.”

DesireForceSituationSunGrowingShiningPlantSunlightVegetationPlants Growing
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“We can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spirituality when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques.”

ThinkingSpiritualSpiritualityTechniqueDevelopingDeceivingStrengthening
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“Ego is constantly attempting to acquire and apply the teachings of spirituality for its own benefit.”

SpiritualityTeachingEgoBenefitsAcquireAttempting
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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“The main point of any spiritual practice is to step out of the bureaucracy of ego. This means stepping out of ego's constant desire for a higher, more spiritual, more transcendental version of knowledge, religion, virtue, judgment, comfort, or whatever it is that the particular ego is seeking. One must step out of spiritual materialism.”

MeanSpiritualDesireStepsPracticeVirtueParticularHigherComfortEgoJudgmentConstantSeekingVersionsMaterialismBureaucracyTranscendentalSpiritual Practice
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
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