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On Chögyam Trungpa

On Chögyam Trungpa

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche is the quintessential spiritual guide. His teachingssteeped in ancient tradition and presented with relaxed fluency in western language and cultureare profound, accessible, and fresh. In addition to the buddhadharma, he offered the secular path of Shambhala, cultivating an appreciation of inherent bravery, dignity and goodness beyond cultural and religious bounds. Through his many books, Trungpa Rinpoche continues to be an incomparable source of wisdom and courage in the world. The Chronicles is an ongoing celebration of his profound teachings and life example.

Copyright Diana J. Mukpo. Used here by arrangement with Diana J. Mukpo and Shambhala Publications, Inc.
These teachings by Chögyam Trungpa are selected at random from Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week: the email service that brings Trungpa Rinpoche’s dharma to your inbox several times each week. For more information, or to add your name to the list, visit OceanofDharma.com.
Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week is edited and produced by Carolyn Rose Gimian. Thank you to Lady Diana Mukpo, Mrs. Gimian, and Shambhala Publications for making these teachings available on the Chronicles.

Cosmic Pancake

Our ordinary approach to reality and truth is so poverty-stricken that we don’t realize that the truth is not one truth, but all truth. It could be everywhere, like raindrops, as opposed to water coming out of a faucet that only one person can drink from at a time. Our limited approach is a problem. It may be our cultural training to believe that only one person can get the truth: “You can receive this, but nobody else can.” There are all sorts of philosophical, psychological, religious, and emotional tactics that we use to motivate ourselves, which say that we can do something but nobody else can. Since we think we are the only one that can do something, we crank up our machine and we do it. And if it turns out that somebody else has done it already, we begin to feel jealous and resentful. In fact, the dharma has been marketed or auctioned in that way. But from the point of view of ati, the ultimate view, there is “all” dharma rather than “the” dharma. The notion of “one and only” does not apply anymore. If a gigantic pancake falls on our head, it falls on everybody’s head. In some sense it is both a big joke and a big message. You cannot even run to your next-door neighbor saying, “I had a little pancake fall on my head. What can I do? I want to wash my hair.” You have nowhere to go. It is a cosmic pancake that falls everywhere on the face of the earth. You cannot escape–that is the basic point. From that point of view, both the problem and the promise are cosmic.

— From “Maha Ati,” ” in Journey without Goal: The Tantric Wisdom of the Buddha, page 137.

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

The Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was one of the most brilliant masters of Tibetan Buddhism in the twentieth century. Throughout his life, he embodied...

Meditation and the Buddhist Path

These five talks where given at the Theosophical Society in Buffalo, New York, in October 1970

Jamgon Kongtrul Seminar

This seminar is offered at this time to mark the re-publication of The Sun of Wisdom, a guru sadhana composed by Chögyam Trungpa to his root guru, Jamgon Kongtrul of Shechen.

Jewel Ornament of Liberation

These 17 talks on Gampopa's Jewel Ornament of Liberation are among the first talks given by Trungpa Rinpoche after his arrival in the United States in July 1970.

The Charnel Ground

This is Talk Three from the 1975 Sadhana of Mahamudra Seminar

Cheerful Shambhala Day 1978

Here is the first ever Shambhala Day address, nine minutes and 17 seconds. It took place just after dawn in the newly renovated third-floor shrine room of Dorje Dzong, now the Boulder Shambhala Center. The room was packed with many students and many young children; it was a joyful moment.