[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: Awareness and Emotion

[Carolyn Gimian]

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

August 25, 2007

AWARENESS AND EMOTION

Student: You said in CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM that 
vipashyana or awareness works more with the emotions. Could you explain that?

Chogyam Trungpa: The awareness of what's around you includes the 
emotions. You can't have emotions without being aware of something. 
If you hate somebody, if you dislike them intensely, you are not only 
disliking that person, but your dislike includes the environment, 
that black cloud that the person has created around you. So actually, 
a sense of openness is there. That's how the emotions work. You don't 
try to destroy, subjugate  or suppress your emotions at this level of 
practice. You are in tune with the style of the emotions that are 
taking place. So you have the antidote. The emotions and your 
practice go hand in hand, side by side. Normally, we feel undermined 
by our emotions, and we feel bewildered by them. But once you have a 
sense of being in contact with the emotions, from that sense of 
familiarity, a sense of openness takes place....You might think that 
you have a problem with the emotions and I as a teacher will present 
you with a technique to control yourself. But instead we should give 
people some sense of experience and how awareness works with the 
general environment, which is what emotions are, basically.

 From "Meditation: The Way of the Buddha," Talk Four, Naropa 
Institute, Boulder, Colorado, July 1 1974. Edited from an unpublished 
transcript.

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

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Carolyn Rose Gimian

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