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.