Chogyam Trungpa famous quotes

In fact, a person always finds when he begins to practice meditation that all sorts of problems are brought out. Any hidden aspects of your personality are brought out into the open, for the simple reason that for the first time you are allowing yourself to see your state of mind as it is.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Simple #Practice #Personality

The emphasis on practice is because it is the only time in your life you can steer your karmic situation.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Practice #Emphasis #Situation

The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there's no ground.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Inspirational #Fall #Air

A great deal of the chaos in the world occurs because people don't appreciate themselves.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#People #Appreciate #World

When human beings lose their connection to nature, to heaven and earth, then they do not know how to nurture their environmect or how to rule their world - which is saying the same thing. Human beings destroy their ecology at the same time that they destroy one another. From that perspective, healing our society goes hand in hand with healing our personal, elemental connection with the phenomenal world.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Healing #Hands #Perspective

Meditation practice is a way of making friends with ourselves. Whether we are worthy or unworthy, that's not the point. It's developing a friendly attitude to ourselves, accepting the hidden neurosis coming through.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Attitude #Practice #Meditation

Sanity lies somewhere between the inhibitions of conventional morality and the looseness of the extreme impulse
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Lying #Morality #Sanity

We say that the sun is behind the clouds, but actually it is not the sun but the city from which we view it that is behind the clouds. If we realized that the sun is never behind the clouds we might have a different attitude toward the whole thing.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Buddhist #Attitude #Clouds

You are sitting on the earth and you realize that this earth deserves you and you deserve this earth. You are there - fully, personally, genuinely.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Sitting #Earth #Realizing

We are threatened by the now so we jump to the past or the future.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Past

Begin to build up confidence and joy in your own richness. That richness is the essence of generosity. It is the essence of resourcefulness ; that you can deal with whatever is available around you and not feel poverty stricken.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Essence #Generosity #Joy

Although the warrior's life is dedicated to helping others, he realizes that he will never be able to completely share his experience with others...Yet he is more and more in love with the world. That combination of love affair and loneliness is what enables the warrior to constantly reach out to help others. By renouncing his private world, the warrior discovers a greater universe and a fuller and fuller broken heart. This is not something to feel bad about; it is a cause for rejoicing.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Loneliness #Heart #Warrior

Facing yourself is a question of honesty rather than condemning yourself. Good or bad the idea is simply to face the facts. Just see the simple, straightforward truth about yourself without cutting yourself down.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Honesty #Cutting #Simple

The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Ego #Use #Spirituality

Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Beautiful #Real #Heart

Compassion has nothing to do with achievement at all. It is spacious and very generous. When a person develops real compassion, he is uncertain whether he is being generous to others or to himself because compassion is enviromental generosity, without direction, without " for me" and without " for them". It is filled with joy, spontaneously existing joy, constant joy in the sense of trust, in the sense that joy contains tremendous wealth, richness.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Buddhist #Real #Compassion

I would like to say, ladies and gentlemen, that you shouldn't be afraid of who you are. That's the first key idea. You shouldn't be afraid of who you are. You should NOT be afraid of who you are. It's very important for you to realize that.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Keys #Ideas #Gentleman

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.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Warrior #Brave #Should

Becoming "awake" involves seeing our confusion more clearly.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Confusion #Becoming #Awake

We must be willing to be completely ordinary people, which means accepting ourselves as we are without trying to become greater, purer, more spiritual, more insightful. If we can accept our imperfections as they are, quite ordinarily, then we can use them as part of the path. But if we try to get rid of our imperfections, then they will be enemies, obstacles on the road to our ‘self-improvement’.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Spiritual #Mean #Self

Sometimes one touches on a very painful spot where one is almost too shy to look into it, but somehow one still has to go through it. And by going into it, one finally achieves a real command of oneself. One gains a thorough knowledge of oneself for the first time.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Real #Gains #Firsts

It's possible to be completely enlightened... except with your family.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Enlightened #Our Family

Sanity is permanent, neurosis is temporary.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Neurosis #Sanity #Temporary

One day passes and another day comes along, and everything happens the same. But basically, we are so afraid of the brilliance coming at us, and the sharp experience of our life, that we can't even focus our eyes.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Eye #Focus #Grace

Too often, people think that solving the world's problems is based on conquering the earth, rather than touching the earth, touching ground.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Thinking #People #Touching

Just fully being skillful involves total lack of inhibition. We are not afraid to be. We are not afraid to live. We must accept ourselves as being warriors. If we acknowledge ourselves as warriors, then there is a way in, because a warrior dares to be, like a tiger in the jungle.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Warrior #Way #Accepting

Our path is sometimes rough and sometimes smooth; nonetheless, life is a constant journey... whatever we do is regarded as our journey, our path. That path consists of opening oneself to the road, opening oneself to the steps we are about to take.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Journey #Path #Steps

When we talk about compassion we talk in terms of being kind. But compassion is not so much being kind; it is being creative [enough] to wake a person up
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Compassion #Creative #Be Kind

Ego is constantly attempting to acquire and apply the teachings of spirituality for its own benefit.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Teaching #Ego #Benefits

The point is not to convert anyone to our view, but rather to help people wake to their own view, their own sanity.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Views #People #Helping

In the garden of gentle sanity, May you be bombarded by the coconuts of wakefulness.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Garden #Coconuts #May

Compassion is not having any hesitation to reflect your light on things
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Compassion #Light #Hesitation

The basic wisdom of Shambhala is that in this world, as it is, we can find a good and meaningful human life that will also serve others. That is our true richness.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Meaningful #World #Human Life

Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Inspirational #Life #Happiness

Warriorship is so tender, without skin, without tissue, naked and raw. It is soft and gentle. You have renounced putting on a new suit of armor. You have renounced growing a thick, hard skin. You are willing to expose naked flesh, bone and marrow to the world.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Skins #Naked #Armor

Fearlessness is extending ourselves beyond our limited view.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Views #Fearlessness

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.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Pain #Heart #Sadness

Mindfulness does not mean pushing oneself toward something or hanging on to something. It means allowing oneself to be there in the very moment of what is happening in the living process - and then letting go.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Letting Go #Mean #Doe

When you are frightened by something, you have to relate with fear, explore why you are frightened, and develop some sense of conviction. You can actually look at fear. Then fear ceases to be the dominant situation that is going to defeat you. Fear can be conquered. You can be free from fear if you realize that fear is not the ogre. You can step on fear, and therefore, you can attain what is known as fearlessness. But that requires that, when you see fear, you smile.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Looks #Steps #Realizing

Meditation practice begins by sitting down and assuming your seat cross-legged on the ground. You begin to feel that by simply being on the spot, your life can become workable and even wonderful. You realize that you are capable of sitting like a king or queen on a throne. The regalness of that situation shows you the... dignity that comes from being still and simple.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Kings #Queens #Simple

Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news!
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#News #Chaos #Should

You must personally accept the responsibility of improving your own life.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Responsibility #Accepting

Meditation is another dimension of natural beauty. People talk about appreciating natural beauty-climbing mountains, seeing giraffes and tigers in Africa, and all sorts of things. But nobody seems to appreciate this kind of natural beauty of ourselves. This is actually far more beautiful than flora and fauna, far more fantastic, far more painful and colorful and delightful.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Beautiful #Climbing #People

It's easier to put on a pair of shoes than to wrap the earth in leather.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Shoes #Earth #Pairs

The basics teachings of Buddha are about understanding what we are, who we are, why we are. When we begin to realize what we are, who we are, why we are, then we begin to realize what we are not, who we are not, why we are not. We begin to realize that we don't have basic, substantial, solid, fundamental ground that we can exert anymore. We begin to realize that our ideas of security and our concept of freedom have been purely phantom experiences.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Teaching #Ideas #Understanding

Anything that is created must sooner or later die. Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Buddhist #Enlightenment #Sooner Or Later

What the warrior renounces is anything in his experience that is a barrier between himself and others. In other words, renunciation is making yourself more available, more gentle and open to others.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Buddhist #Warrior #Renounce

Good and bad, happy and sad, all thoughts vanish into emptiness like the imprint of a bird in the sky.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Sky #Bird #Emptiness

In order to develop love - universal love, cosmic love, whatever you would like to call it one must accept the whole situation of life as it is, both the light and the dark, the good and the bad. One must open oneself to life, communicate with it.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Life #Dark #Light

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.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Practice #Simplicity #Path

Synchronizing mind and body is not a concept or a random technique someone thought up for self-improvement. Rather, it is a basic principle of how to be a human being.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Self #Mind #Body

Our life is an endless journey; it is like a broad highway that extends infinitely into the distance. The practice of meditation provides a vehicle to travel on that road. Our journey consists of constant ups and downs ...
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Distance #Journey #Practice

When we clean up after ourselves, we have nothing to blame. When we begin to live our lives in that way, cleaning up after ourselves, what is left is further vision and further openness, which leads to cleaning up the rest of the world.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Vision #World #Way

The challenge of warriorship is to live fully in the world as it is and to find within this world, with all its paradoxes, the essence of nowness. If we open our eyes, if we open our minds, if we open our hearts, we will find that this world is a magical place.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Spiritual #Heart #Eye

Fearlessness comes from working with the softness of the human heart.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Heart #Humans #Softness

The visual impact of the stupa on the observer brings a direct experience of inherent wakefulness and dignity. Stupas continue to be built because of their ability to liberate one simply upon seeing their structure
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Impact #Dignity #Structure

As long as we relate with our underlying primordial intelligence and as long as we push ourselves a little, by jumping into the middle of situations, then intelligence arises automatically.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Jumping #Long #Littles

The epitome of the human realm is to be stuck in a huge traffic jam of discursive thought.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Jam #Epitome #Traffic

For the warrior, every moment is a challenge to be genuine, and each challenge is delightful. When you let go properly, you can relax and enjoy the challenge.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Letting Go #Warrior #Challenges

Generosity is self-existing openness, complete openness. You are no longer subject to cultivating your own scheme or project. And the best way to open yourself up is to make friends with yourself and with others.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Self #Generosity #Way