Chogyam Trungpa: The discovery of magic can happen only when we transc...

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

air inspirational fall

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

self spiritual mean

To be a spiritual warrior, one must have a broken heart; without a broken heart and the sense of tenderness and vulnerability, your warriorship is untrustworthy.

Chogyam Trungpa

warrior spiritual heart

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

real heart beautiful

My advice to you is not to undertake the spiritual path. It is too difficult, too long, and is too demanding. I suggest you ask for your money back, and go home. This is not a picnic. It is really going to ask everything of you. So, it is best not to begin. However, if you do begin, it is best to finish.

Chogyam Trungpa

spiritual home long

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

warrior loneliness heart

We are always in transition. If you can just relax with that, you'll have no problem.

Chogyam Trungpa

relax transition problem

We cannot change the way the world is, but by opening ourselves to the world as it is, we may find that gentleness, decency and bravery are available - not only to us, but to all human beings.

Chogyam Trungpa

bravery may world

The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions

Chogyam Trungpa

experiencing-everything acceptance practice

Ultimately, that is the definition of bravery: not being afraid of yourself.

Chogyam Trungpa

being-afraid definitions bravery

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

meditation-practice friendly attitude

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

Chogyam Trungpa

emptiness sky bird

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

doe letting-go mean

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

suits-of-armor naked skins

When you relate to thoughts obsessively, you are actually feeding them because thoughts need your attention to survive. Once you begin to pay attention to them and categorize them, then they become very powerful. You are feeding them energy because you are not seeing them as simple phenomena. If one tries to quiet them down, that is another way of feeding them.

Chogyam Trungpa

powerful simple trying

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

Chogyam Trungpa

our-family enlightened

If you are telling the truth, then you can speak gently, and your words will have power.

Chogyam Trungpa

speak power truth

...We leave our homeland, our property and our friends. We give up the familiar ground that supports our ego, admit the helplessness of ego to control its world and secure itself. We give up our clingings to superiority and self-preservation...It means giving up searching for a home, becoming a refugee, a lonely person who must depend on himself...Fundamentally, no one can help us. If we seek to relieve our loneliness, we will be distracted from the path. Instead, we must make a relationship with loneliness until it becomes aloneness.

Chogyam Trungpa

giving-up lonely loneliness

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. It is magical not because it tricks us or changes unexpectedly into something else, but because it can be so vividly and brilliantly.

Chogyam Trungpa

eye mind heart

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

touching people thinking

The discovery of magic can happen only when we transcend our embarrassment about being alive, when we have the bravery to proclaim the goodness and dignity of human life, without either hesitation or arrogance. Then magic can descend onto our existence.