Ocean of Dharma: February 2008

Thursday, February 28, 2008

[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: Prepare to Leap

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

February 28, 2008 (In honor of Leap Year)

PREPARE TO LEAP

In order to overcome selfishness, it is necessary to be daring. It is as though you were
dressed in your swimsuit, standing on the diving board with a pool in front of you, and
you ask yourself: �Now what?� The obvious answer is: �Jump.� That is daring. You
might wonder if you will sink or hurt yourself if you jump. You might. There is no
insurance, but it is worthwhile jumping to find out what will happen. The student warrior
has to jump. We are so accustomed to accepting what is bad for us and rejecting what is
good for us. We are attracted to our cocoons, our selfishness, and we are afraid of
selflessness, stepping beyond ourselves. So in order to overcome our hesitation about
giving up our privacy, and in order to commit ourselves to others� welfare, some kind of
leap is necessary.

From the forthcoming book: OCEAN OF DHARMA: The Everyday Wisdom of Chogyam Trungpa. Available any week now from Shambhala Publications.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

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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Taken from works published by Shambhala Publications, the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.
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Sunday, February 24, 2008

[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: Milarepa's Last Instructions

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

February 24, 2008

[Yesterday was the annual celebration of the life of Milarepa, a great Tibetan yogi saint.]

MILAREPA'S LAST INSTRUCTIONS

Before Milarepa died, he gave his final instructions to the assembled students. He said,
"When I die...don't build statues or stupas in my memory. Instead, raise the banner of meditation. Reject all that increases ego-clinging or inner poison, even if it appears good. Practice all that benefits others, even if it appears bad. This is the true way of dharma. Since life is short and the time of death unknown, devote yourselves wholly to meditation. Act wisely and courageously according to your innate insight, even at the cost of your life. In short, act in a way that you will not be ashamed of."

From "Milarepa: A Warrior's Life" in THE COLLECTED WORKS OF CHOGYAM TRUNGPA, Volume Five, page 359.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: Exploring our Confusion

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

EXPLORING OUR CONFUSION

In our own lives, we feel a sense of confusion -- it seems to be confusion -- but that confusion brings out something that is worth exploring. The questions that we ask in the midst of our confusion are potent questions, questions that we really have. We ask: "Who am I? What am I? What is this? What is life?" and so forth. Then we explore further and ask: "In fact, who on earth asked that question? Who is that person who asked the question 'Who am I?' Who is the person who asked, "What is? or even "What is what is?" We go on and on with this questioning further and further inward. In some way, this is nontheistic spirituality in its fullest sense. External inspirations do not stimulate us to model ourselves on further external situations. Rather, the external situations that exist speak to us of our confusion, and this makes us think more, think further.

>From "Padmasambhava & Spiritual Materialism," in CRAZY WISDOM, pages five to six.

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Thursday, February 14, 2008

[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: Radiation without a Radiator

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

February 14, 2008 Valentine's Day

RADIATION WITHOUT A RADIATOR

Free passion is radiation without a radiator, a fluid, pervasive warmth that flows effortlessly. It is not destructive because it is a balanced state of being and highly intelligent. Self-consciousness inhibits this intelligent, balanced state of being. By opening, by dropping our self-conscious grasping, we see not only the surface of an object, but we see the whole way through. We appreciate not in terms of sensational qualities alone, but we see in terms of whole qualities, which are pure gold. We are not overwhelmed by the exterior, but seeing the exterior simultaneously puts us through to the interior. So we reach the heart of the situation, and if this is a meeting of two people, the relationship is very inspiring because we do not see the other person purely in terms of physical attraction or habitual patterns. We see the inside as well as the outside.

From "Love" in THE MYTH OF FREEDOM, page 110.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

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Sunday, February 10, 2008

[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: A Buddhist Saint

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

February 10, 2008

A BUDDHIST SAINT

Padmasambhava was an Indian teacher who brought the complete teachings of buddhadharma to Tibet. He remains our source of inspiration even now, here in the West...I suppose the best way to characterize Padmasambhava for people with a Western or Christian cultural outlook is to say that he was a saint....The Buddhist approach to spirituality is nontheistic. It does not have the principle of an external divinity.The Buddhist approach to spirituality is connected with awakening within oneself rather than with relating to something external....A saint in the Buddhist context -- for example, Padmasambhava or a great being like the Buddha himself -- is someone who provides an example of the fact that completely ordinary, confused human beings can wake themselves up. They can put themselves together and wake themselves up....The pain, the suffering of all kinds, the misery and the chaos that are part of life, begins to wake them, shake them.

From "Padmasambhava and Spiritual Materialism," in CRAZY WISDOM, pages 3 to 5.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

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Thursday, February 7, 2008

[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: The Mouse and the Turquoise

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

February 7, 2008 SHAMBHALA DAY

A story for the Year of the Earth Mouse

THE MOUSE AND THE TURQUOISE

There is the Tibetan story of a certain monk who renounced his samsaric, confused life and decided to go live in a cave in order to meditate all the time. Prior to this he had been thinking continually of pain and suffering. His name was Ngonagpa of Langru, the Black-faced one of Langru, because he never smiled at all but saw everything in life in terms of pain. He remained in retreat for many years, very solemn and deadly honest, until one day he looked at the shrine and saw that someone had presented a big lump of turquoise as a gift to him. As he viewed the gift, he saw a mouse creep in and try to drag away the piece of turquoise. The mouse could not do it, so it went back to its hole and called another mouse. They both tried to drag away this big lump of turquoise but could not do it. So they squeaked together and called eight more mice that came and finally managed to drag the whole lump back into their hole. Then for the first time Ngonagpa of Langru began to laugh and smile. And that was his first introduction to openness, a sudden flash of enlightenment.
So a sense of humor is not merely a matter of trying to tell jokes or make puns, trying to be funny in a deliberate fashion. It involves seeing the basic irony of the juxtaposition of extremes, so that one is not caught taking them seriously, so that one does not seriously play their game of hope and fear.

From "A Sense of Humor" in CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM pp. 114-115.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

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Saturday, February 2, 2008

[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: The Secular and the Spiritual

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

February 2, 2008

THE SECULAR AND THE SPIRITUAL

We could discuss the question of the amateurish and the genuine warrior, in connection with the secular and the spiritual. When we talk about the secular, we're referring to looking directly at ourselves and discovering our existence and our health and our glory without being influenced by any religious outlook. We are simply discovering ourselves. Vajrayana Buddhists might say that's what they are doing too, and maybe that's true. When we talk about a secular approach, we're not talking about something desecrated. We are simply talking about a situation where you have your own resources and your existence, and you discover whatever is to be discovered from that. We don't have to debuddhicize our discovery. We might find that what we are actually looking for and experiencing in a secular way coincides with Buddhist discoveries, the discoveries described in Buddhism.
Within the secular situation, we still have to use the discipline presented by the Buddhist path. This is the discipline of mindfulness and natural exertion, which is there so that we can actually be open to ourselves, so that we are constantly checking on ourselves, so to speak. In some subtle way, we might find that the secular becomes very sacred, and very real, genuine. From that point of genuineness, where the secular becomes sacred, we begin to discover the true warrior as opposed to the mimicking warrior.

From Talk Three, Talks to Shambhala Training Directors, January 17, 1978. Unpublished.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

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