Picture of Chögyam Trungpa

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.

Visit the Chogyam Trungpa Digital Library for more than 400 Audio and Video Recordings.

Share Quote

Subscribe to

Quote of the week

Our newsletter

The Ultimate Lion’s Roar

In Padmasambhava’s life, the ultimate good news is that the spiritual journey need never have been made. The journey has already been completed; therefore there’s

Read More

Spiritual Freedom

New techniques are continually being introduced in our society; new books are constantly brought out. You think the books might tell you how to become

Read More

No Special Cases

Usually, we are pissed off at our world. We have lots of complaints when things don’t fulfill their function in our life: Our husband is

Read More

Truth Is a Journey

Every talk does not have to be a confirmation. If listening to your student or to your teacher always had to be a confirmation, it

Read More

Truth with Humor

Usually, telling the truth is very depressing. If you mix the truth with a bit of lying, if you add a bit of salt and

Read More

The Magic of Individuality

Perceptions are not governed by one statement alone, but by individuals reacting to the basic elements. When individuals react to air, water, fire, space, or

Read More

Cosmic Pancake

Our ordinary approach to reality and truth is so poverty-stricken that we don’t realize that the truth is not one truth, but all truth. It

Read More

The Real Art of War

At a certain point, you develop a genuine aspiration to get rid of the wall—the separation between you and others. However, you should not think

Read More

What Is Nonviolence?

If anyone gets too near the wall that ego has built, it feels insecure. It thinks that it is being attacked and then thinks that

Read More

Be What You Are

The most difficult discipline is to be what you are. Constantly trying to be what you are not is much easier, because we are trained

Read More

All Sentient Beings

The Practicing Lineage is not based on practitioners locking themselves up in their meditation cells so that they become social nuisances. But practitioners in our

Read More

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.

Photo of Chogyam Trungpa by James Gritz.

The CTR Quote of the Week may be copied and shared with others. Please include a link to this site.

Subscribe to our newsletter