[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: Opening One's Heart

[Carolyn Gimian]

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

April 4, 2009 The 22nd Anniversary of the Parinirvana (Death) of 
Chogyam Trungpa

OPENING ONE'S HEART

Words offered by Jack Kornfield, following the Parinirvana of Trungpa Rinpoche:

Trungpa Rinpoche was a follower of the path of the bodhisattva, the 
path of opening one's heart and one's life to all circumstances and 
all beings. His way combined discipline and openness in a remarkable 
fashion. I hope that speaking about him and some of the qualities 
that I've learned from him will help to inform and inspire the 
practice of Dharma for all of us.
         Chogyam Trungpa has been a tremendous supporter of the 
Vipassana community in America. Trungpa Rinpoche got Joseph 
Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, myself and a number of others to all join 
together to teach in the first year of Naropa University in 1974, and 
after collaborating there we all began to teach vipassana in large 
retreats across the country. My first personal talk with Rinpoche was 
in 1973 at a cocktail party in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when he was 
thinking about starting Naropa Institute. It was a group from Harvard 
University, with professors and dharma practitioners. We were 
drinking cocktails and chatting, and he was interested in the 
training that I had as a monk and about my experiences in monasteries 
where I'd gone in Asia. Rinpoche asked a lot of interesting questions 
about my training. Then he said, "I think you should join us and 
teach at this Buddhist university we're going to establish, Naropa 
Institute." I was reluctant. I had some training in teaching while I 
was in Asia, and I had done  a bit of teaching on a very small scale 
while I was in graduate school. "I don't know if I'm ready to teach 
at that level." He was quite pleased with that, actually. He said, 
"Then it's clear you should be teaching.  Come on, I'll sign you up, 
and you'll be our teacher of Theravada Buddhism." So I went. I had 
met Joseph Goldstein briefly before that, but it was that summer at 
Naropa that he and Sharon Salzberg and I really struck up a deep 
friendship, and began to teach together and have led our community since then.
         Besides being a supporter in those early days, over many 
years Chogyam Trungpa was a great supporter of the Vipassana 
practice. When the great Burmese master Mahasi Sayadaw came to teach 
at our American centers in 1979, Rinpoche was in Europe, but he 
telephoned and tried to arrange a flight to come back just to pay his 
respects to Mahasi Sayadaw.

 From "Holding the Banner of the Dharma,"  by Jack Kornfield, in 
RECALLING CHOGYAM TRUNGPA. Compiled and edited by Fabrice Midal. Pps.20-21.

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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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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.
TO SUBSCRIBE visit the website at http://oceanofdharma.com
For the Chogyam Trungpa Legacy Project and the blog of Carolyn Gimian 
go to: http://ChogyamTrungpa.com


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