Chögyam Trungpa was a Buddhist meditation master, the originator of a radical re-presentation of Shambhala vision, supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, and holder of both the Nyingma and Kagyu lineages.
List of 41 Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche Quotes:
#1 “A great deal of the chaos in the world occurs because people don’t appreciate themselves.”
#2 “The path of truth is profound—and so are the obstacles and possibilities for self-deception.”
#3 “It’s easier to put on a pair of shoes than to wrap the earth in leather.”
#4 “Whether we eat, sleep, work, play, whatever we do life contains dissatisfaction, pain. If we enjoy pleasure, we are afraid to lose it; we strive for more and more pleasure or try to contain it. If we suffer pain we want to escape it. We experience dissatisfaction all the time. All activities contain dissatisfaction or pain, continuously.”
#5 “No matter what the practice or teaching, ego loves to wait in ambush to appropriate spirituality for its own survival and gain.”
#6 “But, if we regard knowledge as an antique, as “ancient wisdom” to be collected, then we are on the wrong path.”
#7 “There are many, many details of action involved in the simplicity and sharpness of being in this very moment, here, now.”
#8 “The idea is not to regard the spiritual path as something very luxurious and pleasurable but to see it as just facing the facts of life.”
#9 “True fearlessness is not the reduction of fear, but going beyond fear.”
#10 “Warriorship is a continual journey. To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life.”
#11 “The ultimate implication of the words “peace on earth” is to remove altogether the ideas of peace and war and to open yourself equally and completely to the positive and negative aspects of the world.”
#12 “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.”
#13 “It is important to see that the main point of any spiritual practice is to step out of the bureaucracy of ego.”
#14 “In order to establish a real teacher-student relationship it is necessary for us to give up all our preconceptions regarding that relationship and the condition of opening and surrender. Surrender means opening oneself completely, trying to get beyond fascination and expectation.”
#15 “The situations of fear that exist in our lives provide us with stepping stones to step over our fear. On the other side of cowardice is bravery. If we step over properly, we can cross the boundary from being cowardly to being brave.”
#16 “Everyone loves something, even if it’s only tortillas.”
#17 “When we are afraid of ourselves and afraid of the seeming threat the world presents, then we become extremely selfish. We want to build our own little nests, our own cocoons, so that we can live by ourselves in a secure way.”
#18 “You have to meet yourself, to know who you are and what you are. Without vipashyana experience, you don’t have any idea of who you are, what you are, how you are, or why you are, at all!”
#19 “When we let go of the self, we are more inspired to work with others; and when we are generous to others, we realize that the self is lost.”
#20 “Where does fear come from? It comes from basic bewilderment. Where does basic bewilderment come from? It comes from being unable to harmonize or synchronize mind and body.”
#21 “Walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle process; it is not something to jump into naively. There are numerous sidetracks which lead 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.”
READ MORE: 50 Inspirational Quotes On Failure
#22 “The point of meditation is not merely to be an honest or good person in the conventional sense, trying only to maintain our security. We must begin to become compassionate and wise in the fundamental sense, open and relating to the world as it is.”
#23 “Ego must wear itself out like an old shoe, journeying from suffering to liberation.”
#24 “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.”
#25 “One of the problems of spiritual searching is that we tend to feel that we can help ourselves purely by reading a lot and practicing by ourselves, not associating ourselves with a particular lineage. Without a teacher to surrender to, without an object of devotion, we cannot free ourselves from spiritual materialism.”
#26 “There is a saying in the Tibetan scriptures: “Knowledge must be burned, hammered, and beaten like pure gold. Then one can wear it as an ornament.” So when you receive spiritual instruction from the hands of another, you do not take it uncritically, but you burn it, you hammer it, you beat it, until the bright, dignified color of gold appears. Then you craft it into an ornament, whatever design you like, and you put it on.”
#27 “But meditation is a life’s work. You cease to sit and meditate in this life when the last breath runs out of your body on your deathbed.”
#28 “As long as a person is involved with warfare, trying to defend or attack, then his action is not sacred; it is mundane, dualistic, a battlefield situation.”
#29 “Our vast collections of knowledge and experience are just part of ego’s display, part of the grandiose quality of ego. We display them to the world and, in so doing, reassure ourselves that we exist, safe and secure, as “spiritual” people.”
#30 “We must begin our practice by walking the narrow path of simplicity, the Hinayana path, before we can walk upon the open highway of compassionate action, the Mahayana path.”
#31 “Thus openness and surrendering are the necessary preparation for working with a spiritual friend. We acknowledge our fundamental richness rather than bemoan the imagined poverty of our being. We know we are worthy to receive the teachings, worthy of relating ourselves to the wealth of the opportunities for learning.”
#32 “Delight in itself is the approach of sanity. Delight is to open our eyes to the reality of the situation rather than siding with this or that point of view.”
READ MORE: 40 Integrity Quotes And Sayings
#33 “Generosity is a willingness to give, to open without philosophical or pious or religious motives, just simply doing what is required at any moment in any situation, not being afraid to receive anything.”
#34 “The ideal of warriorship is that the warrior should be sad and tender, and because of that, the warrior can be very brave as well.”
#35 “Unfortunately there are many kinds of psychotherapy and many psychotherapists involved with trying to prove themselves and their own theories rather than working with what is. In fact, they find it very frightening to work with what is.”
#36 “Hold the sadness and pain of samsara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea.”
#37 “The idea is that when the teaching begins to happen, it is an experience—but experience needs language, and at the same time, language needs experience.”
#38 “The essence of warriorship, or the essence of human bravery, is refusing to give up on anyone or anything.”
#39 “We must try to think beyond our homes, beyond the fire burning in the fireplace, beyond sending our children to school or getting to work in the morning. We must try to think how we can help this world. If we don’t help, nobody will. It is our turn to help the world.”
#40 “We do not have to be ashamed of what we are. As sentient beings, we have wonderful backgrounds. These backgrounds may not be particularly enlightened or peaceful or intelligent. Nevertheless, we have soil good enough to cultivate; we can plant anything in it.”
#41 ”Enlightenment is ego’s ultimate disappointment.”
Images credit – Getty Images
READ THIS NEXT: 40 Quotes About Letting Go And Moving Forward
References https://tricycle.org/author/chogyamtrungparinpoche/ https://www.lionsroar.com/category/teachers-spotlights/teachings-of-chogyam-trungpa-rinpoche/
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
As a founder and chief author at InsightState.com, Bulgarea Candin helps readers on their spiritual journeys. His writings are designed to inspire creativity and personal growth, guiding readers on their journey to a more fulfilled and enlightened life.