Chogyam Trungpa: Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week.

RELATING WITH THE SUBTLETIES OF THOUGHTS

The connection between small ideas and large ideas is very important.

For instance, sudden dramas, such as murdering somebody or creating immense chaos, begin on the level of minute concepts and tiny shifts of attention. Something large is being triggered by something quite small.

The first little hint of dislike or attraction for somebody eventually escalates and brings on a much more immense scale of emotional drama or psychodrama. So everything starts on a minute scale, at the beginning, and then expands. Although emotions are seemingly very heavy-handed, large-scale, and crude, they have their origin in the subtle twists that take place in our mind constantly.

We experience the arising of such thoughts right now, all the time. It is possible for people who have been practicing meditation and studying the teachings, who are opened up and intrigued, to see this pattern. If you have been practicing, you are somewhat raw and unskinned, which is good.

Being able to relate with the subtleties of mental shifts is connected with the principle of paying attention to every activity that we do in smaller doses.

 

From “The Power of Flickering Thoughts,” in THE
TRUTH OF SUFFERING: and the Path of Liberation.
Forthcoming from Shambhala Publications.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

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Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week: teachings by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Taken from works published by Shambhala
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