Khyentse Rinpoche

When sunlight falls on a crystal, lights of all colors of the rainbow
appear; yet they have no substance you can grasp.
Likewise, all thoughts in their infinite variety devotion,
compassion, harmfulness, desire are utterly without substance.
This is the mind of the Buddha. There is no thought that is other
than voidness;
If you recognize the void nature of thoughts at the very moment they
arise, they will dissolve.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Dawn of Enlightenment

DAWN OF ENLIGHTENMENT

A Solstice Quote

Within an enormous vacuum, an enormous space,
enormous outer space, you begin to experience the
dawn of enlightenment -- just the dawn. You get
the message that the sun is going to shine,
purely because there is a little glow in the
east. The dawn of enlightenment in the Buddhist
tradition cannot take place unless first there is
a sense of desolation, meaninglessness, and being
a fool, to begin with. Then the dawn of
enlightenment can actually take place properly.
You begin to experience what we might call, from
a traditional Western reference point, the Star
of Bethlehem. The birth of something is taking
place. Theres a star in the midnight sky. The
sky is black, deep blue, but there is a star
shining in that sky. There is hope in the
positive sense. There is something taking place.
Such a thing cannot happen unless there's
nightfall and darknessWe have already understood
that there's no me, no self, no ground. That
nonexistence begins to make sense. That
non-existence of self, of ego, becomes the Star
of Bethlehem, and the dawn of enlightenment begins to take place.

From "The Dawn of Enlightenment," Talk Five of
MEDITATION: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, July 8, 1974,
Naropa Institute. Edited from the transcript.

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

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Money As Mother's Milk

December 16, 2007

MONEY AS MOTHER'S MILK

As far as business ethics go, it's a question of friendship. When we have a business deal with somebody, we should not think in terms of cutting his throat, but we should have good faith in that particular person and a sense of tenderness toward him. Whether we are buying land from that person or just a tee shirt, there should be tenderness and faith. That goes a long way. On the whole, we should regard money as mother's milk: it nourishes us and it nourishes others. That should be our attitude to money. It's not just a bank coupon that we have in our wallet. Each dollar contains a lot of the past; many people worked for that particular one dollar, one cent. They worked so hard, with their sweat and tears. So we should respect it, like mother's milk. But at the same time, mother's milk can be given away to others, and we can produce more mother's milk. So we shouldn't hang onto it too tightly.

From "Regarding Money as Mother's Milk," an address at a business conference, June 19, 1981. Unpublished transcript.

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

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THE RICHNESS OF THE BUDDHA

December 10, 2007

When the Buddha attained enlightenment, he went around the cities and collected small pieces of cloth that were thrown away by other people. Apparently, he was a good seamstress, so he sewed all those little squares of cloth together, and he made a monastic garment out of them. And it came out beautifully, wonderfully. People remarked, "Look! Who is that person, that well-dressed, well-clad person?" That's where the tradition of sewing monastic robes out of small pieces of cloth came from. Buddha demonstrated that kind of richness, power, and strength. It was not a question of having expensive cloth sewn together, but it was the way the robe was worn, the way it looked. So richness is not purely a result of dollars and cents, or as they used to say in England, LSD, pounds, shillings, and pence. When a person is worthy of wealth, he has it; he embodies it.

From "Regarding Money as Mother's Milk," an address at a business conference, June 19, 1981. Unpublished transcript.

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

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The First Wakefulness

December 7, 2007

THE FIRST WAKEFULNESS

Lha in Tibetan literally means "divine" or "god," but here lha refers
to the highest points on earth, rather than a celestial realm. The
realm of lha is the peaks of snow mountains, where glaciers and bare
rock are found. Lha is the highest point, the point that catches the
light of the rising sun first of all. It is the places on earth that
reach into the heavens above, into the clouds, so lha is as close to
the heavens as the earth can reach. Psychologically, lha represents
the first wakefulness. It is the experience of tremendous freshness
and freedom from pollution in your state of mind. Lha is what
reflects the Great Eastern Sun [the vision of wakefulness] for the
first time in your being and it is also the sense of shining out,
projecting tremendous goodness. In the body, lha is the head,
especially the eyes and forehead, so it represents physical
upliftedness and projecting out as well.

From "Natural Hierarchy," in Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the
Warrior, pages 108 to 109.
.
All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used
by permission.

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12. They have assembled a wonderful selection of unique auction items
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opportunities. An original calligraphy by Chogyam Trungpa is being
auctioned. Bidding is underway.You can browse and bid
at http://www.shambhalasun.com/auction

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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
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December 3 1947

60 th birthday today.
The search term _from my site stats today_ shows "rainbow tibetan guru" from an English/Russian/Polish(?) Google query yielding these results with our presence showing up in the top 10 results:
http://www.google.mn/search?q=rainbow+tibetan+guru&hl=mn&start=60&sa=N

Oddly our ancestors are Russian/Polish

Fractal glimpses of rebirth I guess.

When we closely examine the ordinary habits that underlie whatever we do

When we closely examine the ordinary habits that underlie whatever we do and try to discover where they come from, we find that their very source is our failure to investigate them properly. We operate under the deluded assumption that everything has some sort of true, substantial reality. But when we look more carefully, we find that the phenomenal world is like a rainbowâvivid and colourful, but without any tangible existence. When a rainbow appears in the sky we see many beautiful coloursâ yet a rainbow is not something we can clothe ourselves with, or wear as an ornament. There is nothing we can take hold of; it is simply something that appears to us through the conjunction of various conditions. Thoughts arise in the mind in just the same way. They have no tangible reality or intrinsic existence at all. There is therefore no logical reason why thoughts should have so much power over us, nor any reason why we should be enslaved by them. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Like waves, all the activities of this life have rolled endlessly on, one after the other, yet they have left us feeling empty-handed. Myriads of thoughts have run through our mind, each one giving birth to many more, but what they have done is to increase our confusion and dissatisfaction. - Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

YOUR INDIVIDUAL MANDALA

In tantric iconography, in the set up of a mandala there are various guardian deities at different levels, and their duty is to set the boundary, or the wall of the mandala. That wall has four gates: east, west, south, and north. People are free to enter into the mandala from any direction, but before they come in, they should be processed or purified, cleansed of their obstacles. Then, when they come in, their visit will be worthwhile....Each person has to enter their own mandalas, on their own merit. Everybody has their own individual mandala situations, how they can enter their own buddhanature.From "Continuous Service: Working with the Mandala and the Echo Chamber," in TRUE COMMAND: The Teachings of the Dorje Kasung, Volume One, pages 100 to 101. Trident Publications. Available from shambhalashop.com..All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

Reserves

As our bodily reserves deplete themselves with age and illness it is important to remember that no matter how healthy we are, we are not going to live forever.The best one can hope for is to have the biological clock run out first without breaking down.It is sort of a chicken/egg thing regarding the relationship between running out and breaking down but all in all there are examples of those who pass on peacfully and without alot of mental or physical turmoil.Dr. Jarvis was not an eternalist by any means. He understood the influence of virus' and microbes on host objects and felt that to survive the environmental onslaught( http://www.jcrows.com/jarvisenvironment.html http://www.jcrows.com/jarvisweather.html )
one needed suitable reserves to ward off or slow down their effects.How does one maintain,build and observe the state of one's reserves? Jarvis recommends Lugol's Solution, apple cider vinegar, honey, kelp and the use of hydrion short range ph paper (nitrazine paper) for measuring the bodily acidity of urinary and sweat secretions in the 4.5-7.5 range.With Jarvis' tool kit one has the ability to move beyond a passive state with respect to maintaining health. Through his non proprietary methods one learns to facilitate the resiliency of our private and limited stock of energy reserves enabling us to respond to potential obstacles and interruptions in attention which would otherwise effect us adversely.

Sacred Mantra

One must understand the basic usage of mantra, or sacred syllables, in the teachings of Buddhism. Mantra is not at all a magical spell used in order to gain psychic powers for selfish purposes, such as accumulation of wealth, power over others, and destruction of enemies. According to the Buddhist teachings, all tantric practices, such as visualizations, hatha yoga, or any other yogic practices, must be based on the fundamental teaching of the Buddha, which is the understanding of the four marks of existence: impermanence (anitya), suffering (duhkha), void or emptiness (shunyata), and egolessness (anatman.) Divinities in Buddhism are not external. In other words, they are aspects of the awakened state of mind, such as the great bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara representing the compassionate aspect of buddha nature. There are various mantras, or sacred syllables, connected with these great beings, which help to achieve the essence of compassion, wisdom, or energy. From "Hum: An Approach to Mantra," in THE COLLECTED WORKS OF CHOGYAM TRUNGPA, Volume Five, pages 317 to 318. . All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.
NOTICE OF INTEREST TO SUBSCRIBERS: Our friends at Shambhala Sun Foundation (publishers of the Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma magazines) are hosting their first-ever online auction -- November 21 through December 12. They have assembled a wonderful selection of unique auction items -- including original art, photographs, gift certificates from contemplative publishers, meditation supplies, and retreat opportunities. An original calligraphy by Chogyam Trungpa is being auctioned. Bidding is underway. You can browse and bid at http://www.shambhalasun.com/auction All proceeds from this online auction will help to print the Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly on environmentally responsible paper, and to establish youth internships training the next generation of editors and designers to publish the dharma. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 049 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

Be Grateful to Everyone

Without others, we would have no chance at all to develop beyond ego. So the idea here is to feel grateful that others are presenting us with tremendous obstacles -- even threats or challenges. The point is to appreciate that. Without them, we could not follow the path at all. Walking on the path of the dharma is connected with dealing with our neurosis. But if there were no neuros-ees, we couldn't develop any neuros-is. Therefore, we should feel very grateful to such persons. They are actually the ones who are pushing us onto the path of dharma.

From "Transformation of Bad Circumstances," in TRAINING THE MIND AND CULTIVATING LOVING KINDNESS, page 92. . All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

NOTICE OF INTEREST TO SUBSCRIBERS: >>Our friends at Shambhala Sun Foundation (publishers of the >>Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma magazines) are hosting their >>first-ever online auction- November 21 through December 12. They >>have assembled a wonderful selection of unique auction items - >>including original art, photoraphs, gift certificates from >>contemplative publishers, meditation supplies, and retreat >>opportunities. An original calligraphy by Chogyam Trungpa is one of >>the items being auctioned. Bidding has already opened. >> >>You can browse and bid at http://www.shambhalasun.com/auction >> >>All proceeds from this online auction will help to print the >>Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly on >>environmentally responsible paper, and to establish youth >>internships training the next generation of editors and designers >>to publish the dharma. Your auction bids will support the Shambhala >>Sun Foundation's mission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 048 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

The only land really worth claiming

You might buy a piece of land, clear it, build a house, and cultivate fields,
with the idea that these activities will bring you happiness and satisfaction in the future.
But it is simply not so.
The only land really worth claiming is the stronghold of primordial sim-
plicity, the ultimate and unchanging nature of all things. The way to take hold of it is by
solitary meditation, progressing through the different stages of the path culminating in the Great Perfection. Once you have taken full possession of it, you will be able to dwell
there for the rest of your life, after death, and during all your lives to come. But to get
to that point, be ready for a thousand acts of bravery.

Dilgo Khyentse& Padampa Sangye
The Hundred Verses of Advice

If we try to hard, meditation becomes difficult

If we try too hard, meditation becomes difficult. But it is so easy... Meditation is resting in our own natural awareness.
- Yongey Mingyur Dorje Rinpoche

Misunderstanding of the principle of the voidness of all phenomena - Prajnaparamita

"A Person may become convinced that everything is an illusion, unreal, and may believe he can do anything. But this is a big mistake. As long as we have a body we must respect all of it's limits and needs. If we touch fire with our finger, we immediately feel it burn and pull it back.
This means we have not realized the condition in which there is no I, in which the limits of the physical body no longer remain."
- Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche

The Different Types of Karma

Among the different types of karma, we can further distinguish propelling karma and completing karma.
Propelling karma, as its name suggests, propels one into a state of existence, whatever that may be.
Completing karma determines the specific circumstances within that state of existence; it fills in the basic outline produced by the propelling karma.
These two types of karma can combine so that
" ... if the karma propelling a certain mode of existence were positive and the completing karma that fills in the particulars were negative, we may take birth in a higher state of consciousness, but we would experience unpleasant conditions in that lifetime. For example, although we might take birth as a human, we would be poor.
Conversely, a negative propelling karma associated with a positive completing karma would cause us to take birth in a lower-realm existence in which we would enjoy good circumstances. For example, we might be born in the West as a domestic animal that had very privileged living conditions."
Khyabje Kalu Rinpoche (d.1989) discussed two forms of karma in Luminous Mind, (Wisdom Publications:)

Become the Car

In the practice of meditation, there is a term for awareness, sheshin, which means knowing as it is or knowing things as they are. Awareness is sharpening our antenna, so that a visual, olfactory, auditory, sensory, total perceptual sense of expansion is taking place. It is analagous to driving a car. If we rent a car, at the beginning, when we first start driving, we are concerned about how the car accelerates and how to work all the little gadgets on the dashboard, and how to control the power and speed of the car. If you are an experienced driver, however, you begin to tune yourself immediately into the size of the car, whether it's big or small. Your whole awareness becomes the car, as if the car were your body. So you don't miscalculate the size of the car on the highway, and you know your size, its size, for parking, for that matter. In terms of awareness in meditation practice, we should similarly adapt ourselves. There is a sense of perception expanding, a sense of radiation and seeing how far our feelings extend. Our life situation, running our day to day life, also works that way.
From Talk Four of MEDITATION: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, a five talk seminar at Naropa University, July 1, 1974, Boulder, Colorado. Edited from the 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, 321 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.
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DON'T MISS YOUR EXIT

In life, if you are being too watchful, too mindful, it is possible that you will lose your awareness. That is to say, if you are driving a car and watching the highway more than necessary, you may not see the signposts on the side of the road. You aren't aware of them. You are completely mindful of your driving, watchful of your driving. You are so concerned about your driving and about watching the car in front of you and the car behind you that you miss your exit, because you aren't aware of it. In the practice of meditation, to begin with, it's necessary to have that kind of caution. As we drive on the highway, you need the directness of watching the guy in front of you and behind you, while keeping to the speed limit and watching out for cops. But then, you need something else. However, I wouldn't suggest to students that they try to shift their practice of meditation. Stick to the basic practice of concentration. Then at some point, you will naturally begin to develop some sense of expansion, a sense of greater awareness.
From Talk Four of MEDITATION: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, a five talk seminar at Naropa University, July 1, 1974, Boulder, Colorado. Edited from the 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, 328 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

Is The Awakened Mind of Buddha Attainable?

Is The Awakened Mind of Buddha Attainable?
Yes, Subhuti. With regard to that highest and most awakened mind, I have not attained anything.
That mind is everywhere equally. It cannot be attained or grasped, but it can be realized.
It is realized through the practice of all good actions when they are done in the spirit of no self and no object of self.
- Prajnaparamita

If you want to communicate with others

If you want to communicate with others, you don't have to shout and bang on the table in order to get them to listen. If you are telling the truth, then you can speak gently, and your words will have power. - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

ENLIGHTENMENT IN NEW YORK

I had tremendous fun driving through New York City. A friend and I drove together in New York and we were constantly amazed at how much is going on there. That value doesn't have to be judged as either positive or negative, but it is just how things happen. It's a fantastic display. Trying to fall asleep in the morning, there were garbage trucks and tractors and sirens and people shouting. I was hearing everything through the window, which was also a fantastic experience. If only people just used what they had around them in their environment, there is already the working basis of enlightened society in how we can actually work with the situation. Often when we talk about enlightenment, it is how we can shut off any nuisances of any kind. That often seems to be people's idea. Even the misunderstanding of peace and tranquility is to go off, stop, altogether, close your eyes. That's become the problem.
From" Overcoming Habitual Patterns," in COLLECTED KALAPA ASSEMBLIES, page 267. All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 309 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.
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The Different Levels of Faith_Dilgo Khysentse Rinpoche

There are different levels of faith. First, clear faith refers to the joy and clarity and change in our perceptions that we experience when we hear about the qualities of the Three Jewels and the lives of the Buddha and the great teachers. Longing faith is experienced when we think about the latter and are filled with a great desire to know more about their qualities and to acquire these ourselves. Confident faith comes through practicing the Dharma, when we acquire complete confidence in the truth of the teachings and the enlightenment of the Buddha. Finally, when faith has become so much a part of ourselves that even if our lives were at risk we could never give it up, it has become irreversible faith. --from The Excellent Path to Enlightenment by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, translated by The Padmakara Translation Group, published by Snow Lion Publications

RESOURCEFULNESS

Building up confidence and joy in your own richness is the essence of generosity. It is the sense of resourcefulness, that you can deal with whatever is available around you and not feel poverty-stricken. Even if you are abandoned in the middle of a desert and you want a pillow, you can find a piece of rock with moss on it that is quite comfortable to put your head on. Then you can lie down and have a good sleep. Having such a sense of resourcefulness and richness seems to be the main point. Practicing that resourcefulness and richness, or generosity, is the way to become mahayanists, practitioners of the great vehicle of Buddhism. >From "Transformation of Bad Circumstances," in TRAINING THE MIND AND CULTIVATING LOVING-KINDNESS, page 64. Shambhala Library Edition.

SACREDNESS AND SUPERSTITION

There is a great deal of difference between sacredness and superstition. Superstition is believing something that you've been told, such as that, if somebody drops a rotten egg on your head, it is bad luck. Superstition has no foundation in basic practice. Sacredness, however, is like the experience when you look at pure gold: you get some transmission of pure goldness because gold IS pure and good. Similarly, when you converse with a person of great wisdom, the conversation doesn't necessarily have to be profound per se -- it could just be "hello" and "good-bye" -- but you experience the basic nature of goodness coming out of that person. From "The Warrior's Way," a sourcebook for Shambhala Training, page 11. All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo.

THE PHONE CALL OF NOWNESSThe

The natural process of freeing yourselves from arrogance and cutting off your habitual tendencies is a very drastic measure for a lot of you. You should understand that I have tremendous sympathy for all of you....Habitual tendencies come back all the time. At this very moment, some of you may be thinking: "When I'm done reading this, I should make a phone call," or "When this is over, I should do this and that." Habitual tendencies overcome nowness. That doesn't necessarily mean to say, of course, that you shouldn't make your phone call. You can make your phone call on the basis of nowness, on the level of duty or efficiency -- almost on a military level. But when you mindlessly follow your habitual tendencies, you recruit a lot of cronies to join you and cheer you up, you begin to collect in-groupies, and you begin to collect your own little problems.From" Overcoming Habitual Patterns," in COLLECTED KALAPA ASSEMBLIES, page 263 to 264.
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HABITUAL PATTERNS

Arrogance comes from lack of gentleness. Beyond that, lack of gentleness comes from relying on habitual patterns of behavior.....By clinging to habitual behavior, we are cutting ourselves off from the warrior's world. Habitual patterns are almost like reflexes: when we are shocked, we panic, and when we are attacked, we become defensive. On a more subtle level, we use habitual patterns to hide our self-consciousness. When we feel inadequate, we employ habitual responses to patch up our self-image: we invent excuses to shield our inadequacies from other people. Our standard emotional responses are often reflections of habitual patterns, as are mental fatigue, restlessness, irritation over something we don't like, and many of our desires. We use our habitual patterns to seal ourselves off and to build ourselves up.
From" Overcoming Habitual Patterns," in SHAMBHALA: THE SACRED PATH OF THE WARRIOR, page 120. Dragon Edition.All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.
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Beyond Depression

Let us give up depression. Let us literally give up depression. Then we can smile beautifully, utterly, extraordinarily....I know that sometimes the brilliance of going beyond your depression is so terrifying, but nonetheless, you have to do it. Your cowardice will provide bravery at the same time. When you feel so cowardly and afraid, it is equal to when you see a terrible darkness: you see brilliance at the same time. Please come and join us with a smile. You can do it! It has been done, and you are capable of doing so. Thank you. Please ask questions.
Student: Is there some kind of wisdom behind the depression and we get depressed because...Chogyam Trungpa: Not wisdom behind, but wisdom in front. Wisdom is there. R-r-r-right now!
From "Beyond Depression," in GREAT EASTERN SUN: THE WISDOM OF SHAMBHALA, pages 203 to 205. All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 249 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.
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The Self

The self is simply a vague and convenient concept that we project now here and now there
onto a stream of experiences, and is nothing in or of itself.
- Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

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

Kalu Rinpoche

Within the concept of karma, there is no notion of destiny or fatalism;
we only reap what we sow.
We experience the results of our own actions.

Nobody Watches

The term for awareness in Tibetan means "the knowledge that realizes egolessness through awareness." Awareness brings egolessness because there is no object of awareness. You are aware of the whole thing completely, of you and other and of the activities of you and other at the same time. So everything is open. There is no particular object of awareness. If you're smart enough, you might ask the question," Who is being aware of the whole thing?" That's a very interesting question, the sixty-four-dollar question. And the answer is, nobody is being aware of anything but itself. The razor blade cuts itself. The sun shines by itself. Fire burns by itself. Water flows by itself. Nobody watches -- and that is the very primitive level of egolessness.

From "Continuing Our Confusion," in THE PATH IS THE GOAL: A BASIC HANDBOOK OF BUDDHIST MEDITATION, pages 21 to 22. Edited by Sherab Chodzin.All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 210 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

Wasting Our Time

We can actually sit on a cushion without any purpose, none whatsoever. It is outrageous. It's unthinkable. It's terrible -- we would be wasting our time. Now there's the point: wasting our time. Maybe that's a good one, wasting our time. Give time a rest. Let it be wasted. Create virgin time, uncontaminated time, time that hasn't been hassled by aggression, passion, and speed. Let us create pure time. Sit and create pure time. Buddha did it. Buddha did it two thousand five hundred years ago. He sat and wasted his time. And he transmitted the knowledge to us that it is the best thing we can do for ourselves -- waste our time by sitting. The very idea of aggression and passion could be tamed by sitting practice. Just sitting like a piece of rock is a very important point. I want you to think about the importance of wasting time sitting, slowing down, becoming like a piece of rock. It's the first message of the Buddha. _
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

From "The Only Way," in THE PATH IS THE GOAL: A BASIC HANDBOOK OF BUDDHIST MEDITATION, pages 10 to 11. Edited by Sherab Chodzin.

Compassion is the ultimate attitude of wealth

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... It is the attitude that one has been born fundamentally rich rather than one must become rich. --Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

How To Die

Even if death were to strike you today like lightning, be ready to die without any sadness or regret, without any residual clinging for what is left behind. Remaining in the recognition of the view, leave this life like an eagle soaring up into the blue sky. When an eagle takes flight into the immensity of the sky, he never thinks, "My wings won't be able to carry me. I won't be able to fly that far." Likewise, when dying, remember your teacher and his instructions, and adhere to them with utter confidence. --Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

LIVING ON THE RAZOR'S EDGE

Nowness is the sense that we are attuned to what is happening. The past is fiction and the future is a dream, and we are just living on the edge of a razor blade. It is extraordinarily sharp, extraordinarily tentative and quivering. We try to establish ground but the ground is not solid enough, because it is too sharp. We are quivering between that and this....This razor-blade quality is something more than psychological irritation. Life as a whole becomes penetratingly sharp -- unavoidable and at the same time cutting. We could say that is the living description of the truth that life contains pain. According to Buddhism, life or existence is defined according to the truth of suffering, which is the razor blade.
From "The Razor's Edge," in ORDERLY CHAOS: THE MANDALA PRINCIPLE, pages 18 to 19. All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 190 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

MINDFULNESS IS EXTRA BLISS

According to the Buddha, when you are being mindful, then walking is mindful, talking is mindful, breathing is mindful, feeling is mindful, hearing is mindful, sensation is mindful. You don't need to work harder to feel more than you usually feel, or to hear more than you usually hear. Rather, mindfulness is extra bliss in some sense. I am not particularly trying to make a sales pitch for mindfulness, but it is somewhat joyful. You realize that you could be so uplifted by being mindful. You begin to feel very good that you could rise beyond your regular, ordinary struggles, which don't even require that much awareness, but which normally give you tremendous pain and misery and unmindfulness....We can always experience some sense of the joy of being alive, as human beings. From "Mindfulness Discipline: Cutting the Root of Cause and Effect," in THE 1981 HINAYANA-MAHAYANA TRANSCRIPTS, page 24.All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 180 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.
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THE TRUTH OF SUFFERING

We must work with our fears, frustrations, disappointments, and irritations, the painful aspects of life. People complain that Buddhism is an extremely gloomy religion because it emphasizes suffering and misery. Usually religions speak of beauty, song, ecstasy, bliss. But according to Buddha, we must begin by seeing the experience of life as it is. We must see the truth of suffering, the reality of dissatisfaction. We cannot ignore it and attempt to examine only the glorious, pleasurable aspects of life....So all sects and schools of Buddhism agree that we must begin by facing the reality of our living situations. We cannot begin by dreaming.


From THE MYTH OF FREEDOM and the Way of Meditation, Shambhala Library Edition, pages 3-4.


All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo.

THE OPEN GAP

The moment you wake up, the first thing in the morning, or when you have to struggle to swallow a big piece of meat, or when you have a gigantic sneeze -- there are always occasions where a gap occurs in your mind, where you can plant shamatha in your mind, in the form of mindfulness-awareness. It is not mindfulness in the sense of looking for danger: "Be careful. There might be trouble for you." It is not in that sense. It is simply mindfulness in the sense that there is openness, there is a gap; therefore you might as well be more wakeful. That moment of openness is an opportune situation for you.
From "Mindfulness Discipline: Cutting the Root of Cause and Effect," in THE 1980 HINAYANA-MAHAYANA TRANSCRIPTS, page 24. All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 177 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

Meditation is not regarded a medicine

Meditation is not regarded as medicine or even as therapeutic.
It is just an unconditional way of being in life.
--Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

GO FOR SANITY

In the practice of meditation, we are trying to plant a seed of mindfulness-awareness; we are trying to plant a seed of less habitual, less animal-like instinct. Rats always go for cheese, and rabbits always go for carrots, but we could do better than that. As human beings, we could always go for sanity. We don't always have to think immediately, for our own sake, of our own comfort alone. But right from the moment when cognitive mind begins to function, we could think in terms of something more than self-interest.
From "Mindfulness Discipline: Cutting the Root of Cause and Effect," in THE 1980 HINAYANA-MAHAYANA TRANSCRIPTS, page 24. All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5, 174 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

THE ONLY WAY

According to the Buddha, no one can attain basic sanity and basic enlightenment without practicing meditation. You might be highly confused or you might be highly awakened and completely ready for the path. You might be emotionally disturbed and experiencing a sense of claustrophobia in relation to your world. Perhaps you are inspired by works of art you have done or the visual and audial aspects of works of art in general. You might be fat, thin, big, small, ntelligent, stupid -- whatever you are, there is only one way, unconditionally, and that is to begin with the practice of meditation. The practice of meditation is THE and ONLY way. without that, there is no way out and no way in.
>From "The Only Way," in THE PATH IS THE GOAL: A HANDBOOK OF BUDDHIST MEDITATION, page 4.
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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

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

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

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

Usually When We Breathe

Usually when we breathe, we breathe in and, as soon as we have finished breathing in, we immediately start breathing out. And as soon as we have finished breathing out, we start breathing in again. There is never any space or gap in between the in-breath and the out-breath. Now, many different ways of focusing the mind on the breathing have been taught.... There are basically six methods taught in the abhidharma. But here we have something different from any of those. This is called gentle threefold breathing. It is called gentle because there is no particular attempt to manipulate the breathing, except that instead of breathing in and then immediately breathing out, after breathing in, you wait before you breathe out...here the duration of the inhalation, of the retention, and of the exhalation should all be equal, three equal periods within each complete breath.
In doing this, some people combine the phases of the breath with the mental repetition of the three mantra syllables: OM AH HUM (HUNG)--OM coordinated with the in-breath, AH with the retention of the breath, and HUM (HUNG) with the out-breath. But what is most important here is simply to recollect, as they occur, the inhalation, retention, and exhalation, so that, while you are inhaling, you are aware that you are doing so; while you are retaining the breath, you are aware that you are doing so; and while you are exhaling, you are aware that you are doing so. In the beginning, it is recommended that beginners start with doing, for example, twenty-one of these breaths as a series, and it is important to practice with enough mindfulness so that, while you breathe in, and so forth, you maintain an awareness of what part of the breathing process you are in.
--from The Ninth Karmapa's Ocean of Definitive Meaning, by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, edited, introduced and annotated by Lama Tashi Namgyal, published by Snow Lion Publications

CONSTANT SELF-EXPRESSION

When you are painting or composing music, you have no mind. You just don't think. You are inspired. You are more concerned with the boundary of course, where your mind begins to function in a habitual way. But when you are in the center, inside the boundary, you have no thought, no mind. It's a complete state of existence, meditation, or whatever you call it. With artistic creation, that's the kind of situation we are talking about. At that level, there's no room to think about whether what you are doing is for the public or whether it's personal. It's just constant self-expression. A lot of works of art have been ruined by self consciousness. As an artist, trying to be good is not so good.

>From "The Doha Tradition," Talk Twelve of THE TIBETAN BUDDHIST PATH, Naropa Institute, Summer 1974. Edited from an unpublished transcript.


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THE GROUND OF ART

The practice of meditation consists of sitting practice as well as meditation in action in everyday life situations. This provides some guidance as to how to conduct your life and how to relate to a work of art....When a person becomes a Buddhist or a Buddhist-inspired person, you are already an artist; you are already a poet; you are already a painter; you are already a craftsman. We have to understand this, not only in terms of being arty, clever, resourceful or cunning, but in terms of the solidity [of discipline] in our life situation. We decide to step into the understanding that there is no ego, and we find that there is no maker of ego either. Such a brave step seems to be necessary.
To begin with, it is necessary to emphasize this solid ground [of egolessness and discipline] again and again. Sometimes we find ourselves inspired, but we find it very difficult to be grounded. We have to watch our step very carefully. If things are presented to you in a dramatic way or a fantastic way, there is something else to look into. A sense of stillness, a sense of austerity and a sense of solidity are very important. I would like to present the difficult way to you first, because there is enormous value in that. The hinayana or basic discipline is extremely valuable and necessary before we go beyond.
From "The Doha Tradition," talk twelve in the TIBETAN BUDDHIST PATH, Naropa Institute, July 6, 1974. Edited from an unpublished transcript.
All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo.

When looking for the self

When looking for the self it is very important to remember it is an emotional response that one is examining. When one responds to an event as if one had a self, for example when one feels very hurt or offended, one should ask oneself who or what exactly is feeling hurt or offended.
-- Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness

HOPE FOR ORDINARY PEOPLE

It is fine to look back on the lives of great spiritual teachers, but
equally, it is not particularly romantic. They had the same problems
and difficulties in searching for the teachings that we have in this
century. So there's always hope for all of us; we don't particularly
have to be born perfect. We could just be ordinary people, perfectly
ordinary in the rugged sense; but equally we have a chance to develop
spiritual understanding, as well as to attain enlightenment. So
therefore, the point of looking back to various great teachers is not
that there is something mysterious, something magical about them, but
that they were just ordinary when they began. The point is to see the
way they proceeded through the various necessary situations which
forced them to develop.

From "The Jewel Ornament of Liberation," unpublished seminar, 1970,
Karme-Choling, Vermont.

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

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Because there is the spirit of tree within a tree

Because there is the spirit of tree within a tree, therefore its flowers blossom fragrantly, it turns green, its branches and leaves flourish; this is called the marvel. Even though you may break wood down, you do not see anything you may call the spirit of tree; yet if there were no spirit, the flowers and foliage would not come out. This is also true of the human spirit; even though you cannot open the body to see something you may call the spirit; it is by virtue of the existence of the spirit within you that you perform various actions. --Mayamoto Musashi, The Book of 5 Rings, Shambhala Publications

TRUTH IS LIKE A THUNDERBOLT

July 4, 2007 [Independence Day in the United States]

TRUTH IS LIKE A THUNDERBOLT

Dharma literally means "truth" or "norm." It is a particular way of
thinking, a way of viewing the world, which is not a concept but
experience. This particular truth is very painful truth -- usually
truths are. It rings with the sound of reality, which comes too close
to home. We become completely embarrassed when we begin to hear the
truth. It is wrong to think that the truth is going to sound
fantastic and beautiful, like a flute solo. The truth is actually
like a thunderbolt. It wakes you up and makes you think twice whether
you should stay in the rain or move into the house. Provocative.




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

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Consciousness is not limited by time and space

Consciousness is not limited by time and space, ultimately speaking. This is why, even in our present somewhat limited level of experience, we can think of a place like China and an image of that place comes immediately to mind. The mind doesnt worry about the fact that there is a large distance between here and there. -- Kalu Rinpoche, The Gem Ornament of Manifold Oral Instructions Which Benefits Each and Every Being Appropriately

Conventional Realities

Conventional realities are synonymous with habitual patterns, and the authors of habitual patterns are ignorance and desire.

Chogyam Trungpa

Life Would Be Unbearable If Everything Stayed the Same

Life would be unbearable if everything stayed the same because human beings find situations that are fixed and predictable very hard to tolerate. Even in small matters, we become uneasy if we feel there is no end in sight. I know of couples who live harmoniously together for ten years then marry and are divorced within a year. As soon as they feel bound to each other for the rest of their lives, they begin to fight. Impermanence removes our reasons for quarrelling with each other. Arguments only break out if we imagine that our relationships are endless. When we appreciate that our time with our families, partners, and friends may be shorter than we think, we get on better with each other. Awareness of impermanence gives us extraordinary inner strength and resilience.

--from Mind Training by Ringu Tulku, edited by B.M. Shaughnessy, published by Snow Lion Publications

GROUNDLESS GROUND

Shunyata simply means emptiness, nothingness.....Shunyata, or emptiness, is empty of subject-object relationship. Nonexistent subject, nonexistent object. Perceiver and perceptions do not exist. As far as the groundwork is concerned, there is no definite ground. As long as there is definite ground on the spiritual quest, it becomes a struggle, a deliberate attitude of achievement. And once we begin to be aware of our process of searching as an ambitious struggle, that struggle automatically becomes a formulated struggle, a struggle with ideas, a struggle with theology, concept, which is perpetually creating samsaric mind rather than the spiritual path. The spiritual path becomes religion from that point of view, pejoratively speaking. So the shunyata experience seems to be that which frees us from religiosity and lead us to true spirituality.
From "Ground," in GLIMPSES OF SHUNYATA, pages 12 to 13. Published by Vajradhatu Publications. Available from shambhalashop.com or in THE COLLECTED WORKS OF CHOGYAM TRUNGPA, Volume Two. All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission. OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5,116 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

The Mind

The mind is empty in essence,
Although empty, everything constantly arises in it.
-III Gyalwang Karmapa

EGO AS A STEPPING STONE

Our attitude should be, not so much to destroy ego as a villain or an evil force, but to work with the situation of ego as a stepping stone, a process. At this point, the only material we have is ego. There's no other way to work with spirituality. Ego is the starting point, the only way. Relating with ego is the only path that we have in relating with spirituality and enlightenment. In fact, from that point of view, we should celebrate that we have ego. We have some hope of attaining enlightenment because we have ego. That is the starting point. And that is the attitude of warriors.
From Talk Three of "Meditation: The Way of the Buddha," a seminar at Naropa Institute. June 24, 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 5,107 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

ELEGANCE

Elegance here means appreciating things as they are. Things as you
are and things as they are. There is a sense of delight and of
fearlessness. You are not fearful of dark corners. If there are any
dark, mysterious corners, black and confusing, you override them with
your glory, your sense of beauty, your sense of cleanness, your
feeling of being regal. Because you can override fearfulness in this
way, tantra [or the highest stage in Tibetan Buddhist practice] is
known as the king of all the yanas [stages on the path]. You take an
attitude of having perfectly complete and very rich basic sanity.

rom THE LION'S ROAR: An Introduction to Tantra, Chogyam Trungpa page 46. Edited by
Sherab Chodzin.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo.

THE BOREDOM OF MOUNTAINS AND WATERFALLS

Boredom is important in meditation practice; it increases the psychological sophistication of the practitioners. They begin to appreciate boredom and they develop their sophistication until the boredom begins to become cool boredom, like a mountain river. It flows and flows and flows, methodically and repetitiously, but it is very cooling, very refreshing. Mountains never get tired of being mountains and waterfalls never get tired of being waterfalls. Because of their patience we begin to appreciate them. There is something in that....If we are to save ourselves from spiritual materialism and from buddhadharma without credentials, if we are to become the dharma without credentials, the introduction of boredom and repetitiousness is extremely important. From "Boredom" in THE MYTH OF FREEDOM AND THE WAY OF MEDITATION, pages 70 to 71. Shambhala Library Edition.
From "Boredom" in THE MYTH OF FREEDOM AND THE WAY OF MEDITATION, pages 70 to 71. Shambhala Library Edition. All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo.

FEARLESSNESS AND SPEED

Fearlessness is the absence of cowardice. That is to say, cowardice, or uncertainty, comes from speed, from not being on the spot, and from not being able to lead life properly and fully. You miss a lot of details, and you also miss the overview. To correct that, you need ROOM for fearlessness, which comes from having faith in your existence. Basically speaking, fearlessness is not particularly a reward or a goal, but fearlessness is part of the journey on the path. Fearlessness alternates with fear, and both of those are kindling for the fire. You are nervous, speedy, fearful. Then that brings another area of steadiness, solidity, and calm. So fear and fearlessness constantly alternate. rom "Sacredness: Natural Law and Order," in GREAT EASTERN SUN: THE WISDOM OF SHAMBHALA, page 90.

THE PROCLAMATION OF DHARMA IS FEARLESS

As is said, all dharmas [elements of experience] are marked with emptiness, so confusion is one of the most fundamental dharmas of all. That is what is known as the Lion's Roar of Buddha. That fundamental proclamation of the conch shell of dharma [the teachings], the trumpet of dharma, the gong of dharma sounds constantly all the time. The light of dharma shines constantly, because there is nothing to defeat, there are no ideas to be defeated by. So the proclamation of dharma is fearless. It is beautiful that we could take part in this process of fearlessness, rather than trying to defend ourselves or protect ourselves or develop ourselves. The whole process of fearlessness seems to be the topic, or the theme, that develops from the inspiration of buddhadharma, the Buddhist teachings. It is something to be joyful about; it is a rejoicing process; it is not regarded as a solemn or serious matter. It is beautiful, because fearlessness also has life in it. It contains tremendous energy constantly, all the time.

Excerpts from "The Ultimate Truth Is Fearless," the Opening Ceremony of the Karma Dzong Meditation Center, 1111 Pearl Street, Boulder, Colorado, 25 February 1972.

WILLING TO BE A FOOL

There is lots of room to make mistakes. That's true, absolutely true. But such room for mistakes cannot be created unless there is surrendering, giving, some kind of opening. It cannot take place if there's no basis for it. However, if there is some basis --if we can give
away our aggression or attempt to give it away, if we attempt to open up and strip away our territoriality and possessiveness -- then there is lots of room for making mistakes. That doesn't necessarily mean there is room for dramatic mistakes, but lots of little dribbles of mistakes can take place, which usually occur in any case -- we can't avoid it. We have to allow ourselves to realize that we are complete fools; otherwise, we have nowhere to begin. We have to be willing to be a fool and not always try to be a wise guy. We could almost say that being willing to be a fool is one of the first wisdoms.

From "Wise Fool" in DHARMA ART, page 75.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright

NATURAL INSPIRATION

Genuine inspiration is not particularly dramatic. It's very ordinary. It comes from settling down in your environment and accepting situations as natural. Out of thatyou begin to realize that you can dance with them. So inspiration comes from acceptance rather than from having a sudden flash of a good gimmick coming up inyour mind. Natural inspiration is simply having something somewhere that you can relate with, so it has a sense of stableness and solidity. Inspiration has two parts:openness and clear vision, or in Sanskrit, shunyata and prajna. Both are based on the notion of original mind, traditionally known as buddha mind, which is blank,nonterritorial, noncompetitive, and open.

From "One Stroke" in DHARMA ART, page 100.

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

OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES OF THE WEEK now has 5,315 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.

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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.TO SUBSCRIBE visit the Chogyam Trungpa website by clicking on the following link: http://OceanofDharma.com

BEYOND REASSURANCE

Question: How does one get away from the need for reassurance?

Chogyam Trungpa: Acknowledge needing reassurance, acknowledge it as an effigy that looks in only one direction and does not look around. (It is) an effigy with
one face, possibly only one eye. It doesn't see around, doesn't see the whole situation. Do you see what I mean?...Whenever you need reassurance, that means you
have a fixed idea of what ought to be. And because of that, you fix your vision on one situation, one particular thing. And those situations that are not being observed
because of the point of view of needing reassurance, (those things) that we are not looking at, are a source of paranoia. We wish we could cover the whole ground,
but since we can't do that physiologically, we have to try to stick to that one thing as much as we can. So the need for reassurance has only one eye.

Question: And the way to get beyond that one-eyed vision...?

Chogyam Trungpa: Develop more eyes, rather than just a unidirectional radar system. You don't have to fix your eye on one thing. You can have panoramic vision,
vision all around at once.

From "Genuine Madness and Pop Art" in ILLUSION'S GAME: THE LIFE AND TEACHING OF NAROPA, pages 30 to 31.

NOT ENTRAPPED IN KARMA

If you are captivated by the past, then you can't make a move. But if you have the faintest, slightest doubt of your existence, the faintest suspicion that it could be
changed -- any progressive mentality, rebellious approach, revolutionary approach, whatever -- that breeds further freedom. In other words, the potential of the
embryonic enlightened mind in us can't be undermined by the heavy karma of the past all the time. Sooner or later it's going to break through. So we are not
entrapped in karma, particularly. There is free choice from that point of view.

From "Past, Present and Future," page 16 in THE KARMA SEMINAR, a sourcebook available from Vajradhatu Publications at shambhalashop.com

BELIEF COMES FROM PERCEPTION

It is worthwhile for individuals, even student and teacher, to have
eye-level relationships. There is a Sanskirt term, kalyanamitra,
which means "spiritual friend." It seems most appropriate that we
relate to each other as friends, rather than as student and master as
such. If we relate to one another as equal persons, the world in
which we relate is also an equal situation. The physical living
situation is the only way to relate with our lives as such. I do not
believe in the mystical world, the ethereal world, the world of the
unseen, unknown or whatever. There is no reason to believe in it,
because we don't perceive it. Belief comes from perception. If
there's no perception of something, we don't believe it. Belief does
not come from manufacturing ideas. There may be millions of arguments
and logics set forth, saying that there is an unseen world that
operates on higher levels of consciousness, a world which fulfills
human concerns, punishes those who don't believe, and so forth. But
from the point of view of physics, that is unreal. I'm afraid I'm not
going to say that there is another world. The world that we live in
is the only world.

From "Work, Sex, and Money," Talk One of an unpublished transcript
of a seminar in Burlington, Vermont, April, 1972.

EGO TRUSTS COMPLEXITY

Solidifying by the ego of its space is based on an attitude which trusts complexity. Ego places its trust on very complicated answers, complicated logic. Satipatthana [the sitting practice of meditation] is a way of simplifying the logical mind, the logical mind which...attempts
to fixate, hold onto, grasp, and thus is continually projecting something definite and solid. So the basic practice of simplifying every activity of the mind into just breathing or bodily movement reduces the intensity of the Rudra [or ego] of body.

From "Laying the Foundation" in THE DAWN OF TANTRA, page 9.

Of interest to readers:

The Spring issue of ELEPHANT features a column by Chogyam Trungpa, which will appear in each issue. ELEPHANT online is:

http://www.themindfullife.com/news/currentintro.html

THE WISDOM OF SHAMBHALA

The best doctor of all the doctors, the best medicine of medicines, and the best technology of technologies cannot save you from your life. The best consultants, thebest bank loans, and the best insurance policies cannot save you. Eventually you must realize that you have to do something, rather than depending on technology,financial help, your smartness or good thinking of any kind -- none of which will save you. That may seem like the dark truth, but it is the real truth. In the Buddhisttradition, this is called the vajra truth, the diamond truth, the truth you cannot avoid or destroy. We cannot avoid our lives at all. We have to face our lives, young or old, rich or poor. Whatever happens, we cannot save ourselves from our lives at all. Wehave to face the eventual truth -- not even the eventual truth but the real truth of our lives. We are here; therefore, we have to learn how to go forward with ourlives. This truth is what we call the wisdom of Shambhala.

From "The Wisdom of Shambhala," in ELEPHANT magazine, Spring 2007.

The Spring issue of ELEPHANT features a column by Chogyam Trungpa, which will appear in each issue. ELEPHANT online is:

http://www.themindfullife.com/news/currentintro.html

GENUINE BUDDHA

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

April 4, 2007 The Twentieth Anniversary of the Parinirvana, or death, of Chogyam Trungpa

GENUINE BUDDHA

When the enlightened one was with us,When he talked to us,When he walked with us,When he fixed his robes,When he washed his hands after a meal,The enlightened one was always precise, accurate.He possessed ideal total shinjang, without reference point.He was playful and he was accurate.He was clean, neat, tidy.It was beautiful the way Buddha handled his begging bowl.Watching his fingersHe had no discrimination against or, for that matter, rejection of the way phenomena works:Buddha worked with a blade of grass, Pebbles, dirt, in his begging bowl. He washed his robes with such precision,

We like the way the Buddha is in action.Watching Buddha work is magnificent.There is no discrepancy.Buddha is the best friend.He is the best at working with the unworkables,Therefore he is the king.The best monarch we could ever find is the Buddha.The Buddha's gaze and the Buddha's hands -- the way he washed his handsHe washed his hands as a monarch would.He is not arrogant,He is humble and genuine and imperial.We like Buddha's way:Imperial humbleness.There is no one like him.That is why we call him samyaksambuddha.

O how much I love you Buddha!The way you do things properly,The way you feel the world around you,You have no aggressionO Buddha! O tathagata!You are so tamed, You are so beautiful,You are so royal, You are so humble.O to be like you, the genuine BuddhaWho need not clarify or validate You are buddha as Buddha.O how gorgeous to be Buddha!

We love your simplicity.We are glad that you took human birth and that you conducted yourself in the human realm.O Buddha, samyaksambuddha,We love you.We are astonished that you are Buddha,Fascinated that you are Buddha,Totally captivated that you are Buddha,We are inspired to follow your example.Shakyamuni, O Buddha, we love you.We are your best friend, O best friend.

Homage to the sambuddha, the perfect being.I, Chögyam, emulate you. O Buddha,Namo buddhayaBuddham sharanam gacchami.

By Dharma Sagara, Ananda, Buddha Das, Hotei.

Composed in 1982 at the Vajradhatu Seminary, Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania. Reprinted from THE ESSENTIAL CHOGYAM TRUNGPA, pages 101-102.

Editor's Notes: The 1982 Seminary, where this poem was written, began only a few months after the Parinirvana, or the death, of His Holiness the SixteenthGyalwang Karmapa, the head of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s lineage. At this Seminary, Rinpoche composed a number of poems as examples of devotionalpoetry for his students. The last two lines of the poem are Sanskrit and mean: "Homage to the Buddha, I take refuge in the Buddha." Chogyam Trungpa signedfour titles as his name at the end of this poem. Dharma Sagara is Sanskrit for Dharma Ocean; Ananda was the servant and a close disciple of Shakyamuni Buddha;Buddha Das is a mixture of Sanskrit and Hindi, which means "servant of the Buddha"; and Hotei is the name of a legendary Chinese Zen Master, known for hiscrazy wisdom teachings. He is the model for the fat, round-bellied buddha figures that traditionally bring good luck and wealth. In the poem itself, shinjang refers to the quality of being tamed or processed, which results from the practice of meditation. Samyaksambuddha is a Sanskritepithet for the Buddha, which means “the completely perfect awakened one.” Tathagata is another Sanskrit epithet that means “He who has gone beyond.”Shakyamuni is the name of the historical Buddha, which means “sage of the shakya clan.” Sambuddha means the perfect Buddha, the perfectly awake one.

Two notices of interest to our readers:

I. TWENTIETH PARINIRVANA

Information about Parinirvana events and a tribute to Chogyam Trungpa from Buddhist teachers, his family, students, and others is being featured on the Chroniclesof CTR website at:

http://www.chronicleproject.com/

II. The Spring issue of ELEPHANT magazine is now available. A column by Chogyam Trungpa will appear in each issue. The Spring issue features the first column.ELEPHANT online is:

http://www.themindfullife.com/news/currentintro.html

The Joke is on us_April Fools Day 2007

In order to become a follower of the dharma [the teachings of Buddhism],
one has to become nonaggressive, beyond aggression. In order to do that,
there has to be some kind of warmth in oneself, gentleness in oneself,
which is known as maitri, and there has to be greater gentleness to others,
which is known as karuna, or compassion. When we begin to make a connection
to dharma, we are willing to open our gates, to tear down our walls. Then
for the first time we begin to realize that the joke has been on us all the
time. Accumulating ammunition and building fence after fence was our trip
rather than something actually having taken place. We have wasted so much
of our energy and economy on that trip. When we begin to realize the joke
was on us and created by us, then we are actually following the dharma,
following our minds according to the dharma.

From "Aggression," Talk Two of THE FOUR DHARMAS OF GAMPOPA, a seminar
given at Karme-Choling in July 1975, published in a sourcebook by
Vajradhatu Publications. Available from shambhalashop.com

Of interest to our readers:

TWENTIETH PARINIRVANA

April 4, 2007 is the 20th anniversary of the Parinirvana, or the death, of
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Information about Parinirvana events and a
tribute to Chogyam Trungpa from other teachers, his family, students, and
others will be featured on the Chronicles of CTR website at:

http://www.chronicleproject.com/

MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE REAL WORLD

[In the practice of meditation] having developed a sense of trust in oneself, slowly that expands its expression outward, and the world becomes a friendly world rather than a hostile world. You could say that you have changed the world: you have become the king or queen of the universe. On the other hand, you can't quite exactly say that, because the world has come towards you, to return your friendship. It tried all kinds of harsh ways to deal with you at the beginning, but finally the world and you begin to speak with each other, and the world becomes a real world, a completely real world, not at all an illusory world or a confused world. It is a real world. You begin to realize the reality of elements, the reality of time and space, the reality of emotions -- the reality of everything. From "Dynamic Stillness and Cosmic Absorption" in THE TEACUP AND THE SKULLCUP: CHOGYAM TRUNGPA ON ZEN AND TANTRA. Page 99.

Bodhicitta

If through listening to this explanation of the Seven Point Mind Training we come to recognise how important Bodhichitta is, this will be an infallible cause of our enlightenment. Of all the eighty four thousand different sections of the doctrine, the precious Bodhichitta is the very essence. By hearing the words of such a teaching, it is impossible even for demons, whose nature it is to kill and to do harm, not to have positive thoughts! Kham, a region in East Tibet, was haunted in the past by many ghosts and evil spirits, and this was one of the reasons why Patrul Rinpoche used to explain the Bodhicharyavatara continually to his disciples. Before long, there were no more ghosts--or at least, no one came to any more harm. Such is the hidden power of Bodhichitta! --from Enlightened Courage: An Explanation of the Seven Point Mind Training, by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, translated by the Padmakara Translation Group, published by Snow Lion Publications

The Heart of Zen

THE HEART OF ZEN

One of the basic points in the understanding of the Zen tradition is to discipline and train the wild animal of mind, which should have become domesticated a longtime ago, because this wild animal has buddhanature -- not just buddhanature, but it is buddha. So Zen is largely based on the idea of what is known as the trustingin the heart, or believing in the heart. Every experience we might go through has the potentiality of truth -- everything -- including the confusion.

From "Beauty and Absurdity" in THE TEACUP AND THE SKULLCUP: CHOGYAM TRUNGPA ON ZEN AND TANTRA. Page 89.

OF INTEREST TO OUR READERS: New from Vajradhatu Publications: THE TEACUP AND THE SKULL CUP: CHOGYAM TRUNGPA ON ZEN ANDTANTRA. Edited by Judith Lief and David Schneider. Getting rave reviews from both Zen and Tibetan Buddhist practitioners. Available from shambhalashop.com.

Karma is a natural law like any other natural law

Sometimes we face certain situations where, although we have done something good for others, we may not be able to reap the consequences within this lifetime. When we are talking about the law of causality, we are not limiting its operation to the confines of this life alone, but rather are taking into account both this lifetime and the future. Occasionally people who do not have a proper knowledge of karmic law say that such and such a person is very kind and religious and so forth, but he always has problems, whereas so and so is very deceptive and negative, frequently indulging in negative actions, but always seems very successful. Such people may think that there is no karmic law at all. There are others who go to the other extreme and become superstitious, thinking that when someone experiences illness, it is all due to harmful spirits.... It is also possible for very negative people to experience their positive karma ripening immaturely due to the very strong force of negative actions, and thus to exhaust the potentials of their virtuous actions. They experience a relative success in this life, while others who are very serious practitioners, as a result of the force of their practices, bring upon this lifetime the consequences of karmic actions which might have otherwise thrown them into rebirth in lower realms of existence in the future. As a result, they experience more problems and illnesses in this life.

Just resolving not to indulge in a negative action is not enough. It should be accompanied by the understanding that it is for your own benefit and sake that you must live with awareness of the law of karma: if you have accumulated the causes, you will have to face the consequences; if you desire a particular effect, you can work to produce its causes; and if you do not desire a certain consequence, you can avoid engaging in actions that will bring it about. You should reflect upon the law of causality as follows: that there is a definite relation between causes and effects; that actions not committed will never produce an effect; and that once committed, actions will never lose their potentiality simply through the passage of time. So, if you wish to enjoy desirable fruits, you should work for the accumulation of the appropriate causes, and if you want to avoid undesirable consequences, you should not accumulate their causes.... [Karma] is a natural law like any other natural law.

--from Path to Bliss: A Practical Guide to Stages of Meditation by H.H. the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, translated by Geshe Thubten Jinpa, edited by Christine Cox, published by Snow Lion Publications

Crazy Monkey Mind

The mind is like a crazy monkey, which leaps about and never stays in one place. It is completely restless and constantly paranoid about its surroundings. The training,or the meditation practice, is a way to catch the monkey, to begin with. That is the starting point. Traditionally, this training is called shamatha in Sanskrit, or shi-ne inTibetan, which means simply "the development of peace." When we talk about the development of peace, we are not talking about cultivating a peaceful state, as such,but about simplicity.

From "Trapping the Monkey" in THE TEACUP AND THE SKULLCUP: CHOGYAM TRUNGPA ON ZEN AND TANTRA. Page 72.

OF INTEREST TO OUR READERS: New from Vajradhatu Publications: THE TEACUP AND THE SKULL CUP: CHOGYAM TRUNGPA ON ZEN ANDTANTRA. Edited by Judith Lief and David Schneider. Getting rave reviews from both Zen and Tibetan Buddhist practitioners. Available from shambhalashop.com.

However much you suffer

However much you suffer, the suffering is just the dance of what is,
so you shouldn't be depressed.

--Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, The Great Path of Awakening

Milarepa

Anger is the cause of falling to the Realms Below; Knowing this, one should refrain from wrath, Even at the risk of life. -The Jetsun Milarepa

Warrior's Philosophy

The starting point is acknowledging that some kind of goodness exists in us. It is necessary to take that arrogant attitude, positively speaking. There is some feeling of upliftedness. We are worthy people, and we have something going for us. We are not all that totally wretched. Of course, we do have the wretched aspect that we have to face and look at. That is absolutely necessary in order to realize the other part. But they don't actually interact as counterparts. It's simply that you go through your clouds, and then you see your sun. That is the basic approach, the basic idea we should take towards the worthiness of our existence. That, by the way, is the warrior's philosophy of looking at ourselves.

From Talk One of "Warriorship in the Three Yanas," an unpublished seminar given by Chogyam Trungpa at the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, August 22, 1978. OF INTEREST TO OUR READERS: New from Vajradhatu Publications: THE TEACUP AND THE SKULL CUP: CHOGYAM TRUNGPA ON ZEN AND TANTRA. Edited by Judith Lief and David Schneider. Getting rave reviews from both Zen and Tibetan Buddhist practitioners. Available from shambhalashop.com. Look under publications by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

Fundamentally Awake

Something exists in us which is basically awake, as opposed to asleep.There is something intrinsically cheerful and fundamentallypride-worthy.It is intrinsic, which is to say: without conning ourselves into it. Itisone-hundred-percent gold, beyond twenty-four carat. According to theBuddhist tradition, that is what is known as Buddha nature. In Sanskrititis often referred to as tathagatagarbha, which means that the essence[garbha] of those who have already gone beyond, the tathagatas orbuddhas,that essence exists in us. We take that attitude: that we ourselves arefundamentally awake. We ourselves are good already. It's not justpotential. It's more than potential.

>From Talk One of "Warriorship in the Three Yanas," an unpublishedseminargiven by Chogyam Trungpa at the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, August 22,1978.

Milarepa

It is most precious to be born a worthy and leisured human being. Knowing this, one should with care observe the precepts as if protecting his own eyes.

- The Jetsun Milarepa

Beyond Facing Ourselves

Once we decide to look at ourselves, we may experience ourselves as wretched, in the most profoundly degrading situations, or some of us may have brilliant andgood situations happening, too. Whatever arises, we look at ourselves, either based on hope or fear, whatever there may be. The important point is looking atourselves, finding ourselves, facing ourselves, giving up our privacy and inhibition. Once we have done that, we turn to the good side of things. We begin to realizethat we have something in us which is fundamentally, basically good -- very good. It actually transcends the notion of good or bad. Something worthwhile,wholesome and healthy exists in us. But don't jump the gun and try to get ahold of that first. First, let's look. If we actually face ourselves properly and fully, we will find that something else exists there, something beyond facing ourselves.

From Talk One of "Warriorship in the Three Yanas," an unpublished seminar given by Chogyam Trungpa at the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, August 22,1978.

Facing Ourselves

We have a fear of facing ourselves. That is the obstacle. Experiencing the innermost core of our existence is very embarrassing to a lot of people. A lot of peopleturn to something that they hope will liberate them without their having to face themselves. That is impossible. We can't do that. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to see our gut, our excrement, our most undesirable parts. We have to see them. That is the foundation of warriorship, basically speaking. Whatever is there, we have to face it, we have to look at it, study it, work with it and practice meditation with it.

From Talk One of "Warriorship in the Three Yanas," an unpublished seminar given by Chogyam Trungpa at the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, August 22, 1978.

What is a Warrior?

Anyone who is interested in hearing the dharma [teachings], anyone who is interested in finding out about oneself, and anyone who is interested in practicingmeditation is basically a warrior. The approach of cowardice is looking for some tremendous external help, whether it comes from the sky or from the earth. Youare afraid of actually seeing yourself; therefore you use spirituality or religion as a seeming way of seeing yourself without looking directly at yourself at all. Basically,when people are embarrassed about themselves, there's no fearlessness involved. Therefore, anybody who is interesting in looking at oneself, finding out aboutoneself, and practicing on the spot could be regarded as a warrior.

From Talk One of "Warriorship in the Three Yanas," an unpublished seminar given by Chogyam Trungpa at the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, August 22,1978.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo

MISUNDERSTANDING AWARENESS

Openness and awareness is a state of not manufacturing anything else; it is just being. And there is a misunderstanding,...which regards awareness as an enormous effort -- as if you were trying to become a certain unusual and special species of animal. You think now you're known as a meditator, sonow you should proceed in a certain special way, and that way you will become a full-fledged meditator. That is the wrong attitude. One doesn't try to hold oneself in the state of meditation, the state of awareness. One doesn't try painfully to stick to it.
Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche

Page 118, in "From Raw Eggs to Stepping-Stones" in THE PATH IS THE GOAL: A BASIC HANDBOOK OF BUDDHIST MEDITATION.

There are different types of boredom

There are different types of boredom that we usually experience. Insecurity, lack of excitement, being idle, nothing happening... In vipashyana, the boredom we are talking about is a sense of being idle, and this is unconditional boredom. The experience of vipashyana awareness has a quality of all-pervasive, thick cream. It has body, at the same time it is fluid, and it is somewhat challenging. - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Awareness is like a wind

In talking about open mind, we are referring to a kind of openness that is related with letting self-existing awareness come to us. And awareness is not something thatneeds to be manufactured: when there is a gap, awareness enters into us. So awareness does not require a certain particular effort. Such an effort is unnecessary inthis case. Awareness is like a wind. If you open your doors and windows, it is bound to come in.

Page 116, in "From Raw Eggs to Stepping-Stones" in THE PATH IS THE GOAL: A BASIC HANDBOOK OF BUDDHIST MEDITATION.

When alone

When alone watch your mind,
when with others; watch your mouth...
Lama Karma Rynchen Rinpoche

COMPASSION WITH A THOUSAND ARMS

One often finds Avalokitesvara [the bodhisattva of compassion] portrayed as having a thousand arms [and a thousand eyes], and these symbolize his innumerableactivities. He took a vow to save all sentient beings in that very lifetime....As long as there are more sentient beings and as long as there is more that needs to bedone, his compassion also increases. And this shows that compassion is something within us. Where there is new suffering or a new outbreak of violence, thatviolence contains another eye, another hand of Avalokitesvara. The two things always go together. There is always a kind of negative, but there is always a positivewhich comes with it. In this particular sense, then, one should not exclude the negative and work only for the positive, but realize that the negative contains thepositive within itself. Therefore the act of compassion, the act of Avalokiteshvara, is never ending.

From "The Mahasattva Avalokiteshvara," pages 450-451 in THE COLLECTED WORKS OF CHOGYAM TRUNGPA, Volume One.