Chogyam Trungpa Quotes

Meditation is not concentration. It is simple awareness. You simply relax and watch the breathing. In that watching, nothing is excluded. The car is humming - perfectly okay, accept it. The traffic is passing - that's okay, part of life. The fellow passenger snoring by your side, accept it. Nothing is rejected. You are not to narrow down your consciousness.

Meditation teaches us to focus and to pay clear attention to our experiences and responses as they arise, and to observe them without judging them.

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system, and that is not attention.

Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

Don't think too hard. Just be present, and things will reveal themselves.

Zen taught me how to pay attention, how to delve, how to question and enter, how to stay with -- or at least want to try to stay with -- whatever is going on.

It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.

I meditate. Like, I try. Not every day, but even if I'm not doing that meditation, the moments of my day have changed because I'm not on my phone so much. I'm intentionally not checking my phone every two seconds.

Let your ears hear without trying to hear. Let the mind think without trying to think and without trying to stop it. That is practice.

The real meditation is how you live your life.

When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it.

From the perspective of meditation, every state is a special state, every moment a special moment.

Don't think the purpose of meditation is to go deep into consciousness, wrap a blanket around yourself, and say, 'How cozy! I'm going to curl up in here by myself; let the world burn.' Not at all. We go deep into meditation so that we can reach out further and further to the world outside.

Meditation is not contemplation because it is not thinking at all - consistent, inconsistent, crazy, sane. It is not thinking at all; it is witnessing. It is just sitting silently deep within yourself, looking at whatsoever is happening inside and outside both. Outside there is traffic noise, inside there is also traffic noise - the traffic in the head. So many thoughts - trucks and buses of thoughts and trains and airplanes of thoughts, rushing in every direction. But you are simply sitting aloof, unconcerned, watching everything with no evaluation.

Awareness means grasping life just the way it is, without contamination by mental projections.

To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present. Even if there is noise, there is always some silence underneath and in between the sounds. Listening to the silence immediately creates stillness inside you.

Whenever you step out of the noise of thinking, that is meditation, and a different state of consciousness arises.

Being aware in the moment of right now is just the most important thing. All of our issues come from us not being aware enough or not seeing through our problems to the depths of the issues.

Meditation is offering your genuine presence to yourself in every moment.

If you were only to listen, it becomes meditation. Without meditation you cannot hear. What is the meaning of meditation? Meditation exists only where mind is not; where the internal dialogue is gone.

Meditate. Breathe consciously. Listen. Pay attention. Treasure every moment. Make the connection.

Only one thing is going to remain with you: that is your witnessing, that is your watchfulness. This watchfulness is meditation.