[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: Meeting My Teacher

[Carolyn Gimian]

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

April 4, 2008  [The 21st Anniversary of the Parinirvana (death) of 
Chogyam Trungpa]

MEETING MY TEACHER

Meeting  my teacher, Jamgon Kongtrul, was remarkable. Throughout the 
whole time I was studying with my tutor and being educated at 
the  Surmang monastery in Tibet, they were telling me stories about 
their admiration for people who had died, great teachers they had 
met, who lived in the past. I had never met any of them. According to 
these stories, the whole spiritual thing is that you have to be a 
completely religious person. Even if you are not, you should pretend. 
You pretend to be good, and you keep smiling at everybody. You say 
nice things to everybody, and you half close your eyes all the time, 
as if you are pretending to meditate all the time. That was the kind 
of story I heard.
         But then, meeting Jamgon Kongtrul, I began to actually see 
what people really meant. It was not so much that he half-closed his 
eyes all the time or behaved in a saintly way, particularly. He joked 
around, he was very jolly, and he was very kind and soft and 
insightful. Sometimes he didn't even sit upright. I had been told to 
always sit upright. He lay down in his seat, and he accommodated 
people. There was immense power coming to you from that presence. 
 From that time onward, I would say that the journey was very 
definite and really committed. Before that particular point, I felt 
that I was being made to be a charlatan and asked to make a fool of myself.

 From "The Eleventh Trungpa," in MISHAP LINEAGE: THE LINE OF THE 
TRUNGPAS, forthcoming.

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 
his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.
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