Chogyam Trungpa

Chogyam Trungpa

Tibetan Buddhist teacher.

A Tibetan Buddhist teacher who played a key role in bringing Buddhist teachings to the West. Known for his unconventional yet profound approach, he emphasized the importance of mindfulness, meditation, and compassionate action. He founded several institutions to promote Buddhist studies and arts. His teachings blend traditional wisdom with modern insights, offering a practical path to spiritual awakening.

Chogyam Trungpa Quotes about Life

  • Spirituality doesn’t exist on another level different from ordinary life.
  • The complexities of life situations are really not as complicated as we tend to experience them.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • In the practice of sitting meditation you relate to your daily life all the time. Meditation practice brings our neuroses to the surface rather than hiding them at the bottom of our minds. It enables us to relate to our lives as something workable.
  • You must personally accept the responsibility of improving your own life.
  • Enlightenment is like witnessing the brilliant sun for the first time in the morning. It is like seeing the beautiful flowers that grow in the woods, the frolicking deer, a bird flying proudly, or fish swimming. Life is not all that grim. In the morning when you brush your teeth, you can see how shiny they are. Reality has its own gallantry, spark, and arrogance. You can study life while you are alive. You can study how you can achieve the brilliance of life.
  • Life is a straight drink - straight pleasure, straight pain, straightforward, one hundred percent.
  • The past situation has just occurred and the future situation has not yet manifested itself so there is a gap between the two. This is basically the bardo (life between life) experience.
  • 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.
  • You begin to understand that warriorship is a path or a thread that runs through your entire life. It is not just a technique that you apply when you are unhappy or depressed. Warriorship is a continual journey. To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life. That is the warrior's discipline.
  • To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life.
  • The emphasis on practice is because it is the only time in your life you can steer your karmic situation.