Dancing on the path

A couple of great quotations arrived in my life this week from that fabulous rascal, Chögyam Trungpa. They really spoke to my heart. Hope you enjoy them, too.

March 10, 2010
Tricycle Daily Dharma
Dance with Reality

Sometimes people run away from you because they want to play a game with you. They do not want a straight, honest, and serious involvement with you, they want to play. But if they have a sense of humor and you do not, you become demonic. This is where lalita, the dance, comes in. You dance with reality, dance with apparent phenomena. When you want something very badly you do not extend your eye and hand automatically; you just admire. Instead of impulsively making a move from your side, you allow a move from the other side, which is learning to dance with the situation. You do not have to create the whole situation; you just watch it, work with it, and learn to dance with it. So then it does not become your creation, but rather a mutual dance. No one is self-conscious, because it is a mutual experience.

– Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, "Love Story" Tricycle Winter 2009

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week
March 11, 2010
THE PATH IS PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

The path of dharma, the dharma marga, provides all kinds of problems, and we work along with those. Without that path, we would fall asleep. Suppose highways were without any bends, just like Roman roads, a one-shot deal straight from New York to Washington, 100 percent straight. The drivers would fall asleep. Because of that, there would be more accidents than if the road had bends in it with road signs here and there. The path is personal experience, and one should take delight in those little things that go on in our lives, the obstacles, seductions, paranoias, depressions, and openness. All kinds of things happen, and that is the content of the journey, which is extremely powerful and important.

From "The Only Way," in THE PATH IS THE GOAL: A Basic Handbook of Buddhist Meditation, pages 12 to 13.