BUDDHA SAW THE PROBLEM

With tremendous deception, we create samsara -- pain and misery for the whole world, including ourselves --but we still come off as if we were innocent. We call ourselves ladies and gentlemen, and we say, "I never commit any sins or create any problems. I''m just a regular old person, blah blah blah.” That snowballing of deception and the type of existence our deception creates are shocking.

You might ask, "If everybody is involved with that particular scheme or project, then who sees the problem at all? Couldn't everybody just join in so that we don't have to see each other that way? Then we could just appreciate ourselves and our snowballing neuroses, and there would be no reference point whatsoever outside of that." Fortunately -- or maybe unfortunately -- we have one person who saw that there was a
problem. That person was known as Buddha. He saw that there was a problem, he worked on it, and he got beyond it. He saw that the problem could be reduced -- and not just reduced, but completely annihilated, because he discovered how to prevent the problem right at the source. Right at the beginning, cessation is possible. Cessation is possible not only for the Buddha, but for us as well. We are trying to follow his path, his approach.

From "Introduction" to THE TRUTH OF SUFFERING AND THE PATH OF LIBERATION, edited by Judith Lief, forthcoming this Spring from Shambhala Publications. To preorder your copy at a 20% discount, go to:
http://www.shambhala.com/html/catalog/items/isbn/978-1-59030-668-0.cfm

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

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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Taken from works published by Shambhala Publications, the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.
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