110+ Chogyam Trungpa Quotes On Death, Happiness And And Marriage

Teacher Chogyam Trungpa was a Tibetan Buddhist meditation master, scholar, and artist who founded Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. He is known for his teachings on the integration of meditation and everyday life, as well as for his role in introducing Buddhism to the West. He wrote several books on Buddhism, meditation, and the path of the warrior, and his teachings continue to be influential in the West. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Chogyam Trungpa on love, life, death.

Top 10 Chogyam Trungpa Quotes

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. In the garden of gentle sanity, May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.
4. We are always in transition. If you can just relax with that, you'll have no problem.
5. 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.
6. You are sitting on the earth and you realize that this earth deserves you and you deserve this earth. You are there - fully, personally, genuinely.
7. A great deal of the chaos in the world occurs because people don't appreciate themselves.
8. Gentle day's flower - The hummingbird competes With the stillness of the air.
9. The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality.
10. Sanity lies somewhere between the inhibitions of conventional morality and the looseness of extreme impulse, but the area in-between is very fuzzy.

Chogyam Trungpa Image Quotes

The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality. — Chogyam Trungpa

Chogyam Trungpa Short Quotes

• If you are telling the truth, then you can speak gently, and your words will have power.
• Fearlessness comes from working with the softness of the human heart.
• The trouble with Westerners is that they want to witness their own enlightenment.
• Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment.
• Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news!
• We are caught in a traffic jam of discursive thought.
• The epitome of the human realm is to be stuck in a huge traffic jam of discursive thought.
• Sanity is permanent, neurosis is temporary.
• It's easier to put on a pair of shoes than to wrap the earth in leather.
• The artist has tremendous power to change the world.

Chogyam Trungpa Quotes About Love

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. — Chogyam Trungpa

When there is no desire to satisfy yourself, there is no aggression or speed... Because there is no rush to achieve, you can afford to relax. Because you can afford to relax, you can afford to keep company with yourself, you can afford to make love with yourself, to be friends with yourself. — Chogyam Trungpa

Artistic vision is having the clarity to fall in love with what you see. — Chogyam Trungpa

Artistic vision comes from a mind clear enough to fall in love with what we see. — Chogyam Trungpa

Chogyam Trungpa Quotes About Life

To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life. — Chogyam Trungpa

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

Life is a straight drink - straight pleasure, straight pain, straightforward, one hundred percent. — Chogyam Trungpa

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. — Chogyam Trungpa

meditation is a way of developing clarity, which allows us to see the precision of daily life situations as well as our thought process so that we can relate with both of them fully and completely. — Chogyam Trungpa

One day passes and another day comes along, and everything happens the same. But basically, we are so afraid of the brilliance coming at us, and the sharp experience of our life, that we can't even focus our eyes. — Chogyam Trungpa

Our life is an endless journey; it is like a broad highway that extends infinitely into the distance. The practice of meditation provides a vehicle to travel on that road. Our journey consists of constant ups and downs. — Chogyam Trungpa

The basic wisdom of Shambhala is that in this world, as it is, we can find a good and meaningful human life that will also serve others. That is our true richness. — Chogyam Trungpa

Spirituality doesn’t exist on another level different from ordinary life. — Chogyam Trungpa

The complexities of life situations are really not as complicated as we tend to experience them. — Chogyam Trungpa

Chogyam Trungpa Quotes About Spiritual

Tantra is the hot blood of spiritual practice. It smashes the taboo against unreasonable happiness; a thunderbolt path, swift, joyful, and fierce. There is no authentic Tantra without profound commitment, discipline, courage, and a sense of wild, foolhardy, fearless abandon. — Chogyam Trungpa

The challenge of warriorship is to live fully in the world as it is and to find within this world, with all its paradoxes, the essence of nowness. 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. — Chogyam Trungpa

I am alone and my spiritual journey is my experience.' This is the real experience of freedom and independence. Then we begin to see that being alone is a very beautiful thing. Nobody is obstructing our vision. We have complete panoramic vision. — Chogyam Trungpa

The strongest of us are those that are spiritually strong, and a spiritual warrior is one of vulnerability. — Chogyam Trungpa

Faith is the readiness to reveal whatever is concealed. You don't have to conceal doubts by putting on patches of self-confirmation. The readiness to be exposed seems to make the difference between ego's approach to spirituality and an enlightened one. — Chogyam Trungpa

For the very reason that we expect things to be good and beautiful, they won't be. In genuine spirituality, we don't look for bliss. — Chogyam Trungpa

We can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spirituality when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques. — Chogyam Trungpa

Ego is constantly attempting to acquire and apply the teachings of spirituality for its own benefit. — Chogyam Trungpa

Chogyam Trungpa Quotes About World

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

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

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

A great deal of chaos in the world occurs because people don't appreciate themselves. Having never developed sympathy or gentleness toward themselves, they cannot experience harmony or peace within themselves, and therefore, what they project to others is also inharmonious and confused. — Chogyam Trungpa

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

When we clean up after ourselves, we have nothing to blame. When we begin to live our lives in that way, cleaning up after ourselves, what is left is further vision and further openness, which leads to cleaning up the rest of the world. — Chogyam Trungpa

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

Meditation practice is regarded as a good and in fact excellent way to overcome warfare in the world; our own warfare as well as greater warfare. — Chogyam Trungpa

When you experience your wisdom and the power of things as they are, together, as one, then you have access to tremendous vision and power in the world. You find that you are inherently connected to your own being. That is discovering magic. — Chogyam Trungpa

We could say that compassion is the ultimate attitude of wealth: an anti-poverty attitude, a war on want. It contains all sorts of heroic, juicy, positive, visionary, expansive qualities. And it implies larger scale thinking, a freer and more expansive way of relating to yourself and the world. — Chogyam Trungpa

Chogyam Trungpa Quotes About Ideas

I would like to say, ladies and gentlemen, that you shouldn't be afraid of who you are. That's the first key idea. You shouldn't be afraid of who you are. You should NOT be afraid of who you are. It's very important for you to realize that. — Chogyam Trungpa

In the cocoon, there is no idea of light at all, until we experience some longing for openness, some longing for something other than the smell of our own sweat. When we examine that comfortable darkness - look at it, smell it, feel it - we find it is claustrophobic. — Chogyam Trungpa

You don't know how to take off your suit of armor. You have no idea how to conduct yourself without the reference point of your own security... You can expose your wounds and flesh, your sore points. You can be completely raw and exposed. — Chogyam Trungpa

Chogyam Trungpa Quotes About Create

We need to encourage an attitude of constant questioning, which is a genuine part of our potential as students. If students were required to drop their questions, that would create armies of zombies- rows of jellyfish...The questioning mind is absolutely necessary. — Chogyam Trungpa

Anything that is created must sooner or later die. Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it. — Chogyam Trungpa

Right mindfulness does not simply mean being aware; it is like creating a work of art. You can therefore trust what you are doing; you are not threatened by anything. You have room to dance in the space, and this makes it a creative situation. The space is open to you. — Chogyam Trungpa

You do not have to force yourself to do anything at all. There is a continual exchange, a continual dance. It is similar to the sun shining and plants growing. The sun has no desire to create the vegetation; plants simply react to sunlight and the situation develops naturally. — Chogyam Trungpa

Chogyam Trungpa Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

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

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

The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality. — Chogyam Trungpa

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

Hold the sadness and pain of samsara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea. — Chogyam Trungpa

When you drop your unnecessary things, you finally can swoop and fly in vast space. It is so blue, so bright, and so nice, so airy and fresh. You can stretch your wings and breathe the air. You can do anything you want. You have experienced cheerfulness and joy, and finally the bliss of freedom occurs in you. — Chogyam Trungpa

Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy. — Chogyam Trungpa

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

Sometimes one touches on a very painful spot where one is almost too shy to look into it, but somehow one still has to go through it. And by going into it, one finally achieves a real command of oneself. One gains a thorough knowledge of oneself for the first time. — Chogyam Trungpa

We do not have to be ashamed of what we are. As sentient beings we have wonderful backgrounds. These backgrounds may not be particularly enlightened or peaceful or intelligent. Nevertheless, we have soil good enough to cultivate; we can plant anything in it. — Chogyam Trungpa

Just fully being skillful involves total lack of inhibition. We are not afraid to be. We are not afraid to live. We must accept ourselves as being warriors. If we acknowledge ourselves as warriors, then there is a way in, because a warrior dares to be, like a tiger in the jungle. — Chogyam Trungpa

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

The main point of any spiritual practice is to step out of the bureaucracy of ego. This means stepping out of ego's constant desire for a higher, more spiritual, more transcendental version of knowledge, religion, virtue, judgment, comfort, or whatever it is that the particular ego is seeking. One must step out of spiritual materialism. — Chogyam Trungpa

Elegance means appreciating things as they are. There is a sense of delight and of fearlessness. You are not fearful of dark corners. — Chogyam Trungpa

The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions and to all people, experiencing everything totally without mental reservations and blockages, so that one never withdraws or centralizes into oneself. — Chogyam Trungpa

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

When one is able to overcome the romantic and emotional attitude, one discovers truth even in the kitchen sink. — Chogyam Trungpa

Look. This is your world! You can't not look. There is no other world. This is your world; it is your feast. You inherited this; you inherited these eyeballs; you inherited this world of color. Look at the greatness of the whole thing. Look! Don't hesitate - look! Open your eyes. Don't blink, and look, look - look further. — Chogyam Trungpa

For the warrior, every moment is a challenge to be genuine, and each challenge is delightful. When you let go properly, you can relax and enjoy the challenge. — Chogyam Trungpa

Developing confidence is like watching the sun rise. First it seems very feeble and one wonders whether it will make it. Then it shines and shines. — Chogyam Trungpa

The essence of warriorship, or the essence of human bravery, is refusing to give up on anyone or anything. — Chogyam Trungpa

We must begin our practice by walking the narrow path of simplicity, the hinayana path, before we can walk upon the open highway of compassionate action, the mahayana path. — Chogyam Trungpa

Sit and do nothing. Every once in a while a golden fish swims by and lays her golden eggs. You'll know. — Chogyam Trungpa

Generosity is self-existing openness, complete openness. You are no longer subject to cultivating your own scheme or project. And the best way to open yourself up is to make friends with yourself and with others. — Chogyam Trungpa

when one learns a different way of dealing with the situation, one no longer has to have a purpose. One is not on the way to somewhere. Or rather, one is on the way and one is also at the destination at the same time. That is really what meditation is for. — Chogyam Trungpa

The basic work of health professionals in general, and of psychotherapist s in particular, is to become full human beings and to inspire full human-beingness in other people who feel starved about their lives. — Chogyam Trungpa

The ideal of helping is to make others independent of you. You help them to become more independent rather than making them addicted to you. — Chogyam Trungpa

Habit is formed out of memory... We often shape our present situation according to those habitual memories. Instead of starting fresh, we go back to what we've done in the past... easier for us than fighting our way through foreign territory. — Chogyam Trungpa

As long as a person is involved with warfare, trying to defend or attack, then his action is not sacred; it is mundane, dualistic, a battlefield situation. — Chogyam Trungpa

No one can stop or control your thought process or your thinking. You can think anything you want. But that doesn't seem to be the point. The thinking process has to be directed into a certain approach... not in accord with certain dogma, philosophy, or concepts. Instead, one has to know the thinker itself. — Chogyam Trungpa

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

Begin to build up confidence and joy in your own richness. That richness is the essence of generosity. It is the essence of resourcefulness ; that you can deal with whatever is available around you and not feel poverty stricken. — Chogyam Trungpa

As well as making friends with yourself, fundamentally one should be cynical and critical. This doesn't mean that you should punish yourself, but you just attack the areas of ego's indulgence. At the same time, you continue the friendship with yourself. — Chogyam Trungpa

In your cocoon, occasionally you shout complaints, such as, "Leave me alone!" "Bug off!" "I want to be who I am!"... which comes from fighting against your environment... You can raise your head and just take a little peek out of the cocoon... The environment is friendly. It is called "Planet Earth. — Chogyam Trungpa

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

That is the basic pattern of this kind of meditation, which is based on three fundamental factors: first, not centralizing inward; second, not having any longing to become higher; and third, becoming completely identified with here and now. — Chogyam Trungpa

If there is some profound method that offers a quick way, we would rather follow that than undertake arduous journeys and difficult practices. But some manual work and physical effort is necessary. — Chogyam Trungpa

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

Because there is something difficult and destructive involved, there must be something creative involved as well. Relating to that creative aspect is the point. — Chogyam Trungpa

When you have a brilliant sun, which is a source of vision, the light from the sun shines through every window of the house, and the brightness of its light inspires you to open all the curtains. In the vision of the Great Eastern Sun, no human being is a lost cause. — Chogyam Trungpa

Watchfulness is experiencing a sudden glimpse of something without any qualifications - just the sudden glimpse itself. — Chogyam Trungpa

We must see with our own eyes and not accept any laid-down tradition as if it had some magical power in it. — Chogyam Trungpa

The practice of meditation is a way of continuing one's confusion, chaos, aggression, and passion—but working with it, seeing it from the enlightened point of view. — Chogyam Trungpa

People's creativity is very much alive, but when they get paid for their creativity, they often experience that as rather meaningless. Money as the reward for their creative process is very one-dimensional, a tremendous comedown. — Chogyam Trungpa

As long as we relate with our underlying primordial intelligence and as long as we push ourselves a little, by jumping into the middle of situations, then intelligence arises automatically. — Chogyam Trungpa

When we speak of God or achieving union with God, we are often merely trying to put that great thing into a small container. One cannot drive a camel through the eye of a needle. — Chogyam Trungpa

By means of meditation, I feel that we have planted dynamite to transcend the world of confusion. So it would be good if you could practice meditation as much as you can, as much as physically and psychologically possible. You could become more clear and sane, and you could also influence the national neurosis in that way. — Chogyam Trungpa

Whether we eat, sleep, work, play, whatever we do life contains dissatisfaction, pain. If we enjoy pleasure, we are afraid to lose it; we strive for more and more pleasure or try to contain it. If we suffer pain we want to escape it. We experience dissatisfaction all the time. All activities contain dissatisfaction or pain, continuously. — Chogyam Trungpa

We cannot avoid our lives. We have to face our lives, young or old, rich or poor. Whatever happens, we cannot save ourselves from our lives at all... the more you understand, the more you will realize your own responsibility. — Chogyam Trungpa

Humans are the only animals that try to dwell in the future. You don't have to purely live in the present situation without a plan, but the future plans you make can only be based on the aspects of the future that manifest within the present situation. — Chogyam Trungpa

You are actually doing something. You are getting into this process without making sure that what you're doing is okay. Things are actually taking place, almost of their own accord, very simply and directly. That is meditation. — Chogyam Trungpa

The visual impact of the stupa on the observer brings a direct experience of inherent wakefulness and dignity. Stupas continue to be built because of their ability to liberate one simply upon seeing their structure — Chogyam Trungpa

Becoming "awake" involves seeing our confusion more clearly. — Chogyam Trungpa

Meditation practice begins by sitting down and assuming your seat cross-legged on the ground. You begin to feel that by simply being on the spot, your life can become workable and even wonderful. You realize that you are capable of sitting like a king or queen on a throne. The regalness of that situation shows you the... dignity that comes from being still and simple. — Chogyam Trungpa

The point of meditation is not merely to be an honest or good person in the conventional sense, trying only to maintain our security. We must begin to become compassionate and wise in the fundamental sense, open and relating to the world as it is. — Chogyam Trungpa

You can almost convince yourself that you've accomplished things just by thinking about them. The alternative is to be more realistic. You don't necessarily regard the dreaming process as bad or an obstacle, but it's not realistic enough. — Chogyam Trungpa

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

Warriorship does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Warriorship is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness. — Chogyam Trungpa

Nowness is the essence of meditation. Whatever one does, whatever one tries to practice, is trying to see what is here and now. One becomes aware of the present moment through such means as concentrating on the breathing. This is based on developing the knowledge of nowness, for each respiration is unique. It is an expression of now. — Chogyam Trungpa

Life Lessons by Chogyam Trungpa

1. Chogyam Trungpa taught that life is a process of continual learning and growth, and that we should strive to remain open to new experiences and ideas.
2. He encouraged his students to be mindful of their thoughts and actions, and to be aware of how their behavior affects others.
3. He also taught that the most important thing is to be kind and compassionate to oneself and others, and to live with integrity and courage.