[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: A Sudden Flash of Enlightenment

[Carolyn Gimian]

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

March 13, 2008

A SUDDEN FLASH OF ENLIGHTENMENT

A sudden flash of enlightenment does not need training. It does not 
require an educational system. It is inborn nature, not dependent on 
any kind of training at all. The whole concept of needing training 
for things is a very weak approach, because it makes us feel we 
cannot possess the potential in us, and that therefore we have to 
make ourselves better than we are; we have to try to compete with 
heroes or masters. So we try to imitate those heroes and masters, 
believing that finally, by some process of psychological switch, we 
might be able to become THEM. Although we are not actually them, we 
believe we could become them purely by imitating -- by pretending, by 
deceiving ourselves constantly that we are what we are not. But when 
this sudden flash of enlightenment occurs, such hypocrisy doesn't 
exist. You do not have to pretend to be something. You ARE something. 
You have certain tendencies existing in you in any case. It is just a 
question of putting them into practice.

 From "Eternity and the Charnel Ground," in CRAZY WISDOM, pages 41 to 42.

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his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.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