Tuesday, August 28, 2007

A WARRIOR WITHOUT TERRITORY

Student:The idea of a warrior is usually associated with territory or responding to a sense of danger. If we give up all territory, what is the motivation for having the spirit of a warrior?Chogyam Trungpa: A warrior is not like a samurai who is looking for a job. You are not trying to be hired by anybody, not even by yourself. The idea of a warrior is based on a sense of fundamental fearlessness. There is no reason why you should be a coward. It's as simple as that. You are not being a warrior because a state of war exists in your country. We are not trying to win against the egohood people. We are not trying to fight with them. You are being a warrior because you ARE a warrior. If someone asks you, "Are you twenty-one years old?" you say, "Yes, I am." They don't ask you WHY you are twenty-one years old or how you have done this. You would have no answer for that. You are just twenty-one. Warriorship is a basic sense of unshakeability. It's a sense of immovability and self-existing dignity rather than that you are trying to fight with something else.

From "Meditation: The Way of the Buddha," Talk Four, Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado, July 1 1974. Edited from an unpublished transcript. All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 160 subscribers.Please send comments on and contributions to OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK to the list moderator, Carolyn Gimian at: carolyn@shambhala.com.
Carolyn Rose GimianOcean of Dharma Quotes of the Week: teachings by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Taken from works published by Shambhala Publications, the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.TO SUBSCRIBE visit the Chogyam Trungpa website by clicking on the following link: http://OceanofDharma.com

Saturday, August 25, 2007

AWARENESS AND EMOTION

Student: You said in CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM that vipashyana or awareness works more with the emotions. Could you explain that?

Chogyam Trungpa: The awareness of what's around you includes the emotions. You can't have emotions without being aware of something. If you hate somebody, if you dislike them intensely, you are not only disliking that person, but your dislike includes the environment, that black cloud that the person has created around you. So actually, a sense of openness is there. That's how the emotions work. You don't try to destroy, subjugate or suppress your emotions at this level of practice. You are in tune with the style of the emotions that are taking place. So you have the antidote. The emotions and your practice go hand in hand, side by side. Normally, we feel undermined by our emotions, and we feel bewildered by them. But once you have a sense of being in contact with the emotions, from that sense of familiarity, a sense of openness takes place....You might think that you have a problem with the emotions and I as a teacher will present you with a technique to control yourself. But instead we should give people some sense of experience and how awareness works with the general environment, which is what emotions are, basically.

From "Meditation: The Way of the Buddha," Talk Four, Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado, July 1 1974. Edited from an unpublished transcript. All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 155 subscribers. Please send comments on and contributions to OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK to the list moderator, Carolyn Gimian at: carolyn@shambhala.com. Carolyn Rose Gimian Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week: teachings by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Taken from works published by Shambhala Publications, the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources. TO SUBSCRIBE visit the Chogyam Trungpa website by clicking on the following link: http://OceanofDharma.com

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Surrendering Insanity

Marpa the Translator was a great teacher in my lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Discussing Marpa's life is discussing surrendering insanity, which is a barter, an exchange in which we get sanity back instead. Surrendering insanity also means surrendering the habitual patterns of our state of mind, neurotic patterns of all kinds, and the things we're used to indulging ourselves in. We have to give up all of them. We might have to give up reading Time magazine before we go to bed or novels when we get bored. We might have to give up anything. Personal indulgence has to be given up. That seems to be the starting point and seems to be the problem at the same time. From "Marpa," in SELECTED TALKS ON LINEAGE AND DEVOTION, pages 21 to 22. Out of print sourcebook.
All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 161 subscribers. Please send comments on and contributions to OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK to the list moderator, Carolyn Gimian at: carolyn@shambhala.com. Carolyn Rose Gimian Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week: teachings by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Taken from works published by Shambhala Publications, the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources. TO SUBSCRIBE visit the Chogyam Trungpa website by clicking on the following link: http://OceanofDharma.com

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

ABSORBING SUFFERING

Think of the goodness you can give out, what you can give to others. You have lots of good things to give, to breathe out to others. You have lots of goodness, lots of sanity, lots of healthiness. All of that comes straight from the basic awakened and enlightened attitude, which is alive and strong and powerful. So what you give out is no longer just imagination, or something that you have to crank up. You actually have something good to give out to somebody. In turn, you can breathe in something that is painful and negative. The suffering that other people are experiencing can be brought in because, in contrast to that, you have basic healthiness and wakefulness, which can certainly absorb anything that comes to it. You can absorb more suffering because you have a lot more to give. >From TRAINING THE MIND AND CULTIVATING LOVING KINDNESS, page 47. Shambhala Library Edition. To subrscribe to Ocean of Dharma go to oceanofdharma.com. All quotes used by permission of Diana J. Mukpo. Ocean of Dharma now has 2160 subscribers. _______________________________________________ DharmaOcean mailing list DharmaOcean@lists.shambhala.com http://lists.shambhala.com/mailman/listinfo/dharmaocean