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The trouble with Westerners is that they want to witness their own enlightenment.

Chogyam Trungpa

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Chogyam Trungpa
Age: 47 †
Born: 1940
Born: January 1
Died: 1987
Died: April 4
Erudite
Guru
Painter
Philosopher
Professor
Writer
Peking
Trungpa
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Westerners
Observation
Enlightenment
Witness
Trouble

More quotes by Chogyam Trungpa

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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
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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
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Helping others is a question of being genuine and projecting that genuineness to others. This way of being doesn't have to have a title or a name particularly. It is just being ultimately decent.
Chogyam Trungpa
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There seems to be a hypnotic quality to ambition and speed, so that you feel that you are standing still just because you want to go so fast. You might actually be getting close to your goal.
Chogyam Trungpa
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When we hide from the world in this way, we feel secure. We may think we have quieted our fear, but we are actually making ourselves numb with fear. We surround ourselves with our own familiar thoughts, so that nothing sharp or painful can touch us.
Chogyam Trungpa
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You must personally accept the responsibility of improving your own life.
Chogyam Trungpa
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It's easier to put on a pair of shoes than to wrap the earth in leather.
Chogyam Trungpa
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We should see money in terms of the expenditure of energy and how we are going to transmute that energy into a proper use.
Chogyam Trungpa
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In Tibetan, authentic presence is wangthang, which literally means, 'field of power'... The cause or the virtue that brings about authentic presence is emptying out and letting go. You have to be without clinging.
Chogyam Trungpa
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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
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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
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we must continue to be open in the face of great opposition. No one is encouraging us to be open and still we must peel away the layers of the heart.
Chogyam Trungpa
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The way of cowardice is to embed ourselves in a cocoon, in which we perpetuate our habitual patterns. When we are constantly recreating our basic patterns of habits and thought, we never have to leap into fresh air or onto fresh ground.
Chogyam Trungpa
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Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy.
Chogyam Trungpa
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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
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The complexities of life situations are really not as complicated as we tend to experience them.
Chogyam Trungpa
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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
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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
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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
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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