Chogyam Trungpa Quotes - Page 8

Why don't we just expand ourselves into our perfect form, our perfect being?

Mindfulness is like a microscope; it is neither an offensive nor defensive weapon in relation to the germs we observe through it. The function of the microscope is just to clearly present what is there.

Habit is formed out of memory... We often shape our present situation according to those habitual memories. Instead of starting fresh, we go back to what we've done in the past... easier for us than fighting our way through foreign territory.

By means of meditation, I feel that we have planted dynamite to transcend the world of confusion. So it would be good if you could practice meditation as much as you can, as much as physically and psychologically possible. You could become more clear and sane, and you could also influence the national neurosis in that way.

Walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle process; it is not something to jump into naively. There are numerous sidetracks which leades to a distorted, ego-centered version of spirituality; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques. This fundamental distortion may be referred to as spiritual materialism

We must see with our own eyes and not accept any laid-down tradition as if it had some magical power in it.

The point is that whatever one is trying to learn, it is necessary to have firsthand experience, rather than learning from books or from teachers or by merely conforming to an already established pattern.

For the very reason that we expect things to be good and beautiful, they won't be. In genuine spirituality, we don't look for bliss.

The past situation has just occurred and the future situation has not yet manifested itself so there is a gap between the two. This is basically the bardo (life between life) experience. [This is the place where your life is reviewed - where you get another chance to let life teach you and end the cycle of pain. -EM]

Humans are the only animals that try to dwell in the future. You don't have to purely live in the present situation without a plan, but the future plans you make can only be based on the aspects of the future that manifest within the present situation.

If you are involved with the intensity of crescendo situations, with the intensity of tragedy, you might begin to see the humor of these situations as well. As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.

We can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spirituality when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques.

Watchfulness is experiencing a sudden glimpse of something without any qualifications - just the sudden glimpse itself.

The simplicity of meditation means just experiencing the ape instinct of ego.

While you're meditating, all kinds of thoughts arise... You don't find your thoughts threatening or particularly helpful. They just become the general gossip of your thoughts. This traffic of your thoughts and the verbosity of your mind are simply part of the basic chatter that goes on in the universe. Just let it go through.

Language should fulfill your individual existence as a wholesome human being... Language should be more than just getting by.

When we speak of God or achieving union with God, we are often merely trying to put that great thing into a small container. One cannot drive a camel through the eye of a needle.

The idea of buddha mind is not purely a concept or a theoretical, metaphysical idea. It is something extremely real that we can experience ourselves. In fact, it is the ego that feels that we have an ego. It is ego that tells us, My ego is bothering me. I feel very self-conscious about having to be me. I feel that I have a tremendous burden in me, and I wonder what the best way to get rid of it is. Yet all those expressions of restlessness that keep coming out of us are the expression of buddha nature: the expression of our unborn, unobstructed, and nondwelling nature.

You can almost convince yourself that you've accomplished things just by thinking about them. The alternative is to be more realistic. You don't necessarily regard the dreaming process as bad or an obstacle, but it's not realistic enough.

As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.

The charnel ground is that great graveyard in which the complexities of samsara and nirvana lie buried.

One has to taste an experience for oneself and find out if the thing is genuine or helpful. Then, before discarding something, one has to go further, so that one gets firsthand experience.

meditation is a way of developing clarity, which allows us to see the precision of daily life situations as well as our thought process so that we can relate with both of them fully and completely.

If you must begin then go all the way, because if you begin and quit, the unfinished business you have left behind begins to haunt you all the time.

You are actually doing something. You are getting into this process without making sure that what you're doing is okay. Things are actually taking place, almost of their own accord, very simply and directly. That is meditation.