Saturday, September 08, 2007

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 Taken from works published by Shambhala Publications, the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.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

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