Picture of Chögyam Trungpa

Chögyam Trungpa

CTR Quote of the Week

The Path of Meditation Is Working with Karma

As a result of situations in life that have already occurred, we have ended up being what we are now. Our present state of mind, our present spiritual development, and our domestic scene have been karmically determined up to this point. The birth of further karma constantly occurs through the ongoing reliving of the past. We reproduce our nest, ground, or home so that we can function continuously. Therefore the practice of meditation is the only path that can work with the karmic situation, with karma as such.

From The Future Is Open: Good Karma, Bad Karma, and Beyond Karma, page 116.

Visit the Chogyam Trungpa Digital Library to listen to and watch Chogyam Trungpa teaching.

Share Quote

Subscribe to

Quote of the week

Our newsletter

Using Karma as a Path

My purpose in discussing karma is to present a way of using karma as a path, rather than regarding it as something that we should

Read More

Walking the Hard Path

It takes tremendous effort to work one’s way through the difficulties of the path and actually get into the situations of life thoroughly and properly.

Read More

Enjoy the Journey

The whole point of the spiritual path is to transcend ambition or struggle. So presenting meditation in terms of how good you could become at

Read More

The Origin of Karma

Karmic situations are not based on some abstract cosmic law or the abstract aspect of morality, or anything like that. Rather, before morality begins, before

Read More

Benefiting Others

Our subject matter is benefiting others, working for others. To work for others, we have to work on ourselves. We have to love ourselves. We

Read More

The Karma of Money

Usually, people are not aware that money is karmically related to them. If you view money as a bad thing or a big problem, you

Read More

Burning Out Our Confusion

According to the Buddhist tradition, the spiritual path is the process of cutting through our confusion, of uncovering the awakened state of mind. When the

Read More

Obstacles Always Arise

A commentary on the slogan: When the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of bodhi. In our ordinary life, our

Read More

We Share One World

We follow the example of the Buddha, who presented the teachings to the Indians of his time in a universal fashion. It is much more

Read More

What Is Tradition?

Tradition does not mean dressing up in robes and playing exotic music or having dakinis dancing around us, or anything like that. Tradition is being

Read More