Tao Te Ching

The Power of Goodness, the Wisdom Beyond Words
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Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

By Chögyam Trungpa

When Chinese armies were invading Tibet and Chogyam Trungpa was preparing an escape, one of his teachers—learning that he was going to the west—told him he would need a certain text on spiritual materialism. Even in this remote and distance place, materialism's reputation was clear. And when this Buddhist teacher arrived in Europe and later in North America, this reputation was confirmed: capitalism's success in the business realm spread unhelpfully through the fields of politics, education, science, and religion. For anyone who realizes this corrupting influence and wants to become free of it, this book may be the best beginning.

Quotes from Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

“From the point of view of the Madhyamaka school, these other approaches... earlier Buddhist philosophical schools, theistic Hinduism, Vedantism, Islam, Christianity, and most other religious and philosophical traditions... can be grouped together into three categories: the eternalists, the nihilists, and the atomists... atomisitic pluralism”

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“It is essential to surrender, to open yourself, to present whatever you are to the guru, rather than trying to present yourself as a worthwhile student. It does not matter how much you are willing to pay, how correctly you behave”

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“Marpa is an example of someone who was on his way to becoming a successful self-made man... It was Marpa's intention to study and collect texts unknown in Tibet, bring them home, and translate them, thus establishing himself as a great scholar-translator [but meeting his teacher Naropa,] he had to give up everything he had, not just his material possessions, but whatever he was holding back in his mind had to go. It was a continual process of opening and surrender.”

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“Milarepa reached the 'old dog' stage, his highest attainment. People could tread on him, use his as a road, as earth; he would always be there. He transcended his own individual existence so that there is a sense of the universality of Milarepa, the example of enlightenment.”

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Themes: Enlightenment

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“Nagarjuna much preferred to approach truth by taking the arguments of other philosophical schools on their own terms and logically reducing them ad absurdum, rather than by himself offering any definitions of reality.”

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“Our vast collections of knowledge and experience are just part of ego’s display… we have simply created a shop, an antique shop.”

Chapters: 71. Sick of Sickness

Themes: Know Yourself

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“we constantly assume that there is a 'mystery,' something which we do not know—the meaning of life, the key to happiness—as long as we continue to look for a conceptual answer, there will always be areas of mystery”

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Themes: Imagination

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Related Lineages (1 lineages)

Tibetan Vajrayana

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