“We are threatened by the now so we jump to the past or the future.” ~ Chogyam Trungpa

In this life, when we’re tired, we don’t go out. When we’re lonely, we call (or go) home. When we’re bored, we flip the channel or search for something on the internet or call a friend or read a magazine or send a text or make a phone call we don’t really need to make. We’re always trying to get away from boredom or fear. We’re always doing two things at once.

We spend our lives avoiding boredom. Avoiding the, in fact, choiceless present moment.

And it’s in that moment—rather, this moment—that we learn to breathe in through fear, and to breathe out into a fulfilled, joyful life. ~ ed.

Via Chogyam Trungpa, a Buddhist teacher:

Your Journey is Choiceless.

Basic warriorship [in the Shambhala context of non-aggression] is appreciating who we are, what we are, where we are.

Such appreciation and investigation may bring up fear and many
questions. Fear becomes our study material, which in turn becomes our
working basis.

We begin to realize we have no choice but to work with
fear…and then to step over fear and hesitation. Because our journey is
choiceless, we develop a further sense of warriorship.

We actually identify ourselves as warriors, and beyond that, we become citizens of
the Shambhala world, the warrior’s world.

~ Chogyam Trungpa

From “How to Invoke Windhorse” in /Smile at Fear: Awakening the True
Heart of Bravery, page 115.
The paperback is now available.

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