On Meditation

 

By Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

 

 

The following quotes are from Shambhala: The Sacred Path Of The Warrior by Chögyam Trungpa, and assembled on the Shambhala Training Glossary by the Shambhala Center of Seattle.

 

"By meditation we mean something very basic and simple that is not tied to any one culture. We are talking about a very basic and simple act: sitting on the ground, assuming a good posture, and developing a sense of our spot, our place on this earth. This is the means of re-discovering our basic goodness, the means to tune ourselves in to genuine reality, without any expectation or preconceptions." (pg 36-37)

 

"...[W]e are talking about a completely different concept of meditation: unconditional meditation, without any object or idea in mind. In the Shambhala tradition meditation is simply training our state of being so that our mind and body can be synchronized. Through the practice of meditation, we can learn to be without deception, to be fully genuine and alive." (see Synchronizing Mind and Body)  "Our life is an endless journey"... "the practice of meditation allows us to experience all the textures of the roadway, which is what the journey is all about. Through the practice of meditation, we begin to find that within ourselves there is no fundamental complaint about anything or anyone at all." (pg 37)

 

"When you sit in the posture of meditation, you are ... sitting between heaven and earth. ...when you sit upright but relaxed in the posture of meditation, your heart is naked. your entire being is exposed – to yourself, first of all, but to others as well. So through the practice of sitting still and following your breath as it goes out and dissolves, you are connecting with you heart. By simply letting yourself be, as you are, you develop genuine sympathy towards yourself. ... You find that you are looking into outer space. What are you, who are you, where is your heart? If you really look, you won't find anything tangible and solid." (pg 45)

 

"In meditation, you experience the precision of breath going in and out. You feel your breath: it is so good. You breathe out, breath dissolves: it is so sharp and good, it is so extraordinary that ordinary pre-occupations become superfluous. So meditation practice brings out the supernatural... You do not see ghosts or become telepathic, but your perceptions become super-natural, simply super-natural." (pg 102)

 

"The sitting practice of meditation provides an ideal environment to develop renunciation. In meditation, as you work with your breath, you regard any thoughts that arise as just your thinking process. You don't hold on to any thought and you don't have to punish your thoughts or praise them. The thoughts that occur during sitting practice are regarded as natural events, but at the same time, they don't carry any credentials. The basic definition of meditation is ‘having a steady mind'.  In meditation when your thoughts go up, you don't go up, and you don't go down when your thoughts go down. Whether your thoughts are good or bad, exciting or boring, blissful or miserable, you let them be. You don't accept some and reject others. You have a sense of greater space that encompasses any thought that may arise."

 

"In other words, in meditation you can experience a sense of existence, or being, that includes your thoughts but is not conditioned by your thoughts or limited by your thinking process. You experience your thoughts, you label them 'thinking', and you come back to your breath, going out, expanding, and dissolving into space. It is very simple, but it is quite profound. You experience your world directly and you do not have to limit that experience. You can be completely open with nothing to defend and nothing to fear."

 

"In other words, in meditation you can experience a sense of existence, or being, that includes your thoughts but is not conditioned by your thoughts or limited to your thinking process. You experience your thoughts, you label them 'thinking' and you come back to your breath, going out, expanding, and dissolving into space. It is very simple, but it is quite profound. You experience your world directly and you do not have to limit that experience. You can be completely open, with nothing to defend and nothing to fear. In that way, you are developing renunciation of personal territory and small-mindedness." (pg 67)