Picture of Chögyam Trungpa

Chögyam Trungpa

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The Small Sneezes of Your Mind

Mind projects to various situations. Within the short period of a fraction of a second, we project out and we draw in—we sustain ourselves very quickly. From that process of projection, we develop an extremely short memory, based on feeling certain pinpoints. It is like having lots of pins and needles in our legs, all pricking us at the same time. So our memory is transferred in very small portions into what are known as habit-forming thoughts—and these habit-forming thoughts are usually much more wooly and misty than the original mind.

Finally, all these small sneezes of your mind are put together, and they begin to be deflected into the echo chamber of your world. It becomes like a song made out of lots of sneezes, each lasting only a fraction of a second. It is like the hum of bees: if you listen from a distance, it sounds like one big orchestra; but if you listen to each bee individually, you realize that the sound is made up of little beings who are trying to orchestrate their own very minute things.

From “Cutting the Root of Samsara,” in The Future Is Open: Good Karma, Bad Karma, and Beyond Karma, page 129.

To listen to and watch recordings of Chogyam Trungpa teaching, visit the Chogyam Trungpa Digital Library at https://library.chogyamtrungpa.com/.

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