Trungpa on Buddhism

Jeffrey

Trungpa on Buddhism

"Buddhism promises nothing. It teaches us to be what we are where we are, constantly, and it teaches us to relate to our living situations accordingly…

"I'm sorry not to be presenting any glamorous and beautiful promises. Wisdom happens to be a domestic affair. Buddha saw the world as it is and that was his enlightenment. Buddha means 'awake,' being awake, completely awak...e -- that seems to be his message to us…

"He offered a path to being awake, a path with eight points, and he called it 'the eightfold path.'

***

"We must first understand what the Buddha meant by 'right.' (As in "right intention," "right view…")

"'Right' translates the Sanskrit 'samyak,' which means 'complete.' Completeness needs no relative help, no support through comparison, it is self-sufficient… Life without crutches…"

"The Myth of Freedom, Meditation in Action: The Eightfold Path."

Volume Three "The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche"

taiyaki

the man spoke like a lion.

wisdom is very straightforward.

shanyin

wonderful. to me especially to learn translations.

little confused about that one though. right = samyak = complete... ??

federica

The word "Right" in Pali, has over 40 meanings, depending, I would presume, on context.....

http://www.dictionary.tamilcube.com/pali-dictionary.aspx?term=right

zenff

The word in Pali is samma:
It means something like "proper" or "correct".

Trungpa's text-analasis of the eightfold path is not a very good argument, I think.

But I think he has a point in cutting through spiritual materialism ("Buddhism promises nothing").

Jeffrey

@zenff, a friend of mine relayed to me that he read that one of steve jobs most inspiring books he read was "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism", by Trungpa.