Chogyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision

As he himself explained, becoming a Buddhist is not a matter of trying to live up to what you would like to be, but an attempt to be what you are: “This possibility is connected with seeing our confusion, or misery and pain, but not

It is up to us to dismantle the fundamental structure of our ego and learn not to be trapped by our own manipulations, which pretend to help us find comfort but in reality only create more suffering for ourselves and others.

“The Buddhist path is ruthless, absolutely ruthless, almost to the point of being uncompassionate. What we could say is that we are not looking for pleasure. The journey is not geared for finding pleasure; it’s not a pleasure trip.”

Mö means to desire, to want; it is the thirst to receive what the teacher can give. Gü means humility, absence of arrogance, and implies a notion of respect. So mögü describes the union of burning desire and humility, a combination of respect, longing, allegiance, and commitment.

However innumerable beings are, I vow to save them; However inexhaustible the passions are, I vow to transform them; However limitless the dharma is, I vow to understand it completely; However infinite the Buddha’s truth is, I vow to attain it.

We can only love if we have first developed true tenderness toward ourselves.

As Chögyam Trungpa explained, the ego is a sort of central government, while “the emotions are the highlights of the ego, the generals of ego’s army; subconscious thought, daydreams, and other thoughts connect one highlight to another. So thoughts form ego’s army and are constantly in motion, constantly busy.”16 With such an army, we strive to rema

making these discoveries into an answer. Instead we explore further and further and further without looking for an answer. It is a process of working with ourselves, with our lives, with our psychology, without looking for an answer but seeing things as they are—seeing what goes on in our heads directly and simply, absolutely literally. If we can u

A revolution changes, as the philosopher François Fédier wrote, “everything that seems to us to be the most solid inheritance from the past—but not to ‘make it new,’ but instead to remain faithful to the origins we are claiming as ours.”