Week of

The Joke Is on Us

In order to become a follower of the dharma, one has to become nonaggressive, to move beyond aggression. In order to do that, there has to be some kind of warmth in oneself, gentleness in oneself, which is known as maitri, and there has to be greater gentleness toward others, which is known as karuna, or compassion. When we begin to make a connection to dharma, we are willing to open our gates, to tear down our walls. Then for the first time we begin to realize that the joke has been on us all the time. Accumulating ammunition and building fence after fence was our preoccupation. It wasn’t based on something actually having taken place. We have wasted so much of our energy on that. When we begin to realize the joke was on us and created by us, then we are actually following the dharma, following our minds according to the dharma.

From “Aggression,” in The Four Dharmas of Gampopa, an unpublished sourcebook, pages 16 to 17.

 

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The CTR Quote of the Week is coming to you from the Chogyam Trungpa Institute at Naropa University. The compiler of the quotes and the moderator of the list is Carolyn Gimian.

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