I think pleasure and pain are born out of the same kind of background. Generally, people regard pain as bad and pleasure as good, so much so that pleasure is regarded as joy and spiritual bliss, and is connected with heaven, while pain is associated with hell. So if one is able to see the absurdity and irony of trying to achieve pleasure by rejecting pain, fearing extreme pain and so striving toward pleasure, it is all very funny. There is some lacking of sense of humor in people’s attitudes toward pleasure and pain.

Chögyam Trungpa

from the book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

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Further quotes from the book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism:

• Just do what you do
• Silcence
• Letting be
• Tricky ego
• Dissatisfaction
• Soil good enough to cultivate
• Mundane action
• Opening without demand
• The pain of exposing ourselves
• The truth of the spiritual path
• The origin of suffering
• Merely discovered
• The totally demonic state of complete “Egohood”
• Self-deception creates a dream world
• Being a grain of sand
• The condition of openness
• Compassion
• Relating with people
• Give up the paranoia