THE MEETING OF TWO MINDS

The role of the spiritual friend or teacher is to take you out for a walk to look at the star of Bethlehem. "Take a look. We are going to go out there. Our trip begins tomorrow..." Then you get a personal experience, which is mutual between you and the spiritual friend, and then you have a goal, the idea that you want to get to the star of Bethlehem, enlightenment. It is a real experience at that point, no myth. It is not an optical illusion at all. There is the star of Bethlehem out there shining, and it is not a matter of conmanship at all. It's a real experience, very real. According to the Zen tradition, it is known as a satori experience. Or it can be called the meeting of two minds. A person has shown you a certain way of handling oneself, one's emotions, disciplines of all kinds. But the main point here is making enlightenment real.
From "The Star of Bethlehem," in THE PATH IS THE GOAL: A BASIC HANDBOOK OF BUDDHIST MEDITATION, pages 40 to 41. Edited by Sherab Chodzin.
The winners in the Ocean of Dharma: The Everyday Wisdom of Chogyam Trungpa contest have been selected. Everyone who suggested a quote for the book was included in the draw, which was held during a meeting of discussion group leaders (they drew the names) for a class on meditation that I help to teach on Monday nights.
The following twelve people -- from five different countries and three continents -- won a copy of the book, which will be out next Spring:
Jeff Krouk_J.Crow_, New Ipswich, New Hampshire
John Reacroft, London, England
Matthew DiRodio, Morgantown, Pennsylvania
Roxie Lauer, N. Ferriburgh, Vermont
Deborah Lafferty, Alameda, California
Ilya Slavutskiy, Brooklyn, New York
Marke Slipp, Centreville, Nova Scotia, Canada
Bjarne Timonen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Daniel Nguyen, Dollard Des Ormeaux, Quebec, Canada
Cynthia Schroer, Nashua, New Hampshire
Jaime Gomez, Uxbridge, England
Christopher Hazzard, Victoria, Australia
Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all those who participated. All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 247 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 Taken from works published by Shambhala Publications, the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.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