Trungpa

So, it happened that Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche passed away, twenty-five years ago today, and we all have our memories. 

Some younger lamas, and other people, have encouraged me to spend time with those memories, because they feel tremendously inspired by Rinpoche's example. You know, we always tend to speak in terms of what he accomplished for the West, but his influence on Tibetans was equal if not greater.

To serve such interest there are his sangha's Chronicle Project, amid numerous other venues, and you can find these simply by entering the name "Trungpa" in Google.

I do not think any stories I might tell are all that important. Rather, I prefer to honor him by trying to follow the instructions he gave me, which of course, are not mine alone.

Everything Rinpoche said and did was an instruction. 

Everything.

So, today, twenty-five years after... here is one of his instructions, given to us all:

"You should appreciate yourself, respect yourself, and let go of doubt and embarrassment so that you can proclaim goodness and basic sanity for the benefit of others. The self-existing energy that comes from letting go is called windhorse in the Shambhala teachings. Wind is the energy of basic goodness, strong, exuberant, and brilliant. At the same time, basic goodness can be ridden, or employed in your life, which is the principle of the horse. When you contact the energy of windhorse, you can naturally let go of worrying about your own state of mind and you begin to think of others. If you are unable to let go of your selfishness, you might freeze windhorse into ice."

So, that is really very good, isn't it?

You have to thaw what you thought.