CTR Quote of the Week

In everyday life, we habitually try to conceal the gaps in our experience of mind and body. These gaps are a bit like an awkward

Receiving an empowerment, or abhisheka, is proclaiming that, in the future, you will be “So-and-so Tathagata,” or “Lord or Lady of the Universe So-and-so.” Those

An empowerment, or abhsheka, is further sunrise, further East, further dawn of Vajrasattva, further Tai Tung (Great East). Abhisheka enables you to be among the

A vajrayana empowerment is a kind of baptism or coronation. It is the coronation of the student as a would be king or queen. In

Basically, transmission is the meeting of two minds. Understanding this is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, there is no way out and no way in–there is no

It is good to make a big deal of vajrayana; it is actually worth it. When I studied with my teacher, I used to make

Laughing Man: In your book, Born in Tibet, you described how, when you made your cultural adaptation to the West, taking off the monastic robes

It seems important to know something about the medium of meditation and its application. According to the basic Buddhist teachings, in order to learn how

The concept of karma is essential to understanding the different energies needed to function and develop in life, to die and to be born. All

The tradition of the Trungpas evolved to its best capability in presenting what is known as the “three disciplines.” These are the disciplines of exertion,

In my education, I was constantly criticized. I had been brought up strictly since infancy, from the age of eighteen months, so that I had

In order to work with others, you need training. If you want to become a good chauffeur, you first have to learn how to be

The attainment of enlightenment can only take place for the benefit of others rather than yourself. If you are doing it for yourself, you could

When you take the bodhisattva vow, you make certain promises and take on certain disciplines because of your surroundings. You commit yourself, not for yourself,

If people are determined to convert others into their mold, then they are attempting to reassure themselves by using the convert to relieve their doubt.

We are ready to leap onto the bodhisattva path, the path of putting others before ourselves, when we are ready to open to the joy

If we see the Tibetan Book of the Dead only from the point of view of what happens when we die, it becomes like the

The experiences  described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead are very much what happens in our daily living situation. They are not psychedelic experiences

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is based on the fundamental principle of birth and death recurring constantly in this life. One could refer to

If you can afford to be what you are, then that automatically means you could receive others as your guests. Because the ground your guests

Really, you can afford to be what you are! You may think that you’re alone and nobody’s with you. But that in itself is not