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Chögyam Trungpa

CTR Quote of the Week

Working with Our Resentment

Basically, the nature of samsara, or confusion altogether, is suffering. Samsara is a gigantic bag of confusion, lust, and aggression. We know that in America there is immense aggression. There is absolutely immense aggression and resentment in regard to ourselves, our parents, our relatives, our teachers, to everything around us. Every step we walk, each time we have to stop at a traffic light, we feel somebody is laying a trip on us.

Such resentment is embedded completely. There is constant teeth grinding taking place all the time–all the time! It is a state of wretchedness. We do not dare to work together with the world. Instead, we keep deliberately trying to reorganize our own little aggression. We hate our stars, our sunshine, our world. This may be a somewhat exaggerated description of suffering, but it actually does speak out in those terms. So it makes sense to realize how we are working with our resentment.

From “Exposing Ego’s Dirty Tricks,” in Milarepa: Lessons from the Life and Songs of Tibet’s Great Yogi, page 62.

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CTR Quote of the Week

The CTR Quote of the Week is coming to you from the Chogyam Trungpa Institute at Naropa University. The compiler of the quotes and the moderator of the list is Carolyn Gimian.

All material is used by permission of Diana J. Mukpo.

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