Picture of Chögyam Trungpa

Chögyam Trungpa

CTR Quote of the Week

Constitution

Student: I was wondering if the government of Shambhala would have a constitution.

Chogyam Trungpa: Certainly there is a constitution. If you study the four seasons, they have a very complicated constitution. If you study the human mind, it has a constitution. Buddhist psychology, or the abhidharma, (1)provides a very complicated description of how the human mind works and what remedies can be applied at particular levels of the human mind. But in the Shambhala world, the constitution doesn’t seem to be the main point. The main point is the natural organicness of the situation.

S: So, then, the situation determines the form, rather than trying to lay a form onto a society?

CT: That’s right. Yes, very much so. For example, we needed to have the lights switched on here tonight. If we didn’t switch them on, it would be too dark to have a talk. But we don’t all go over to the light switch together. We designate somebody to switch the lights on. We all agree that it’s nighttime, it’s too dark to have a talk in this hall, and we need light. Then somebody is appointed to go over to the switch and turn on the lights. That is constitution for you.

From Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala, page 69.

Visit the Chogyam Trungpa Digital Library to listen to and watch more than 600 recordings. The recordings that are the basis of the book are in the library! At: https://library.chogyamtrungpa.com/great-eastern-sun-the-shambhala-training-level-v-talks/

 

 

 

[1]The abhidharma, literally the “special teaching,” represents the earliest compilation of Buddhist philosophy and psychology. It is a codification and interpretation of the concepts that appear in the discourses of the Buddha and his major disciples.

Share Quote

Subscribe to

Quote of the week

Our newsletter

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