Via Shambhala Publications’ Ocean of Dharma quotes of the week? This appeared in random Facebook group. ~ ed.

Chogyam Trungpa: Decency is Absence of Strategy

“If you are a warrior, decency means that you are not cheating anybody at all. You are not even about to cheat anybody. There is a sense of straightforwardness and simplicity.

With setting-sun vision, or vision based on cowardice, straightforwardness is always a problem. If people have some story or news to tell somebody else, first of all they are either excited or disappointed. Then they begin to figure out how to tell their news. They develop a plan, which leads them completely away from simply telling it. By the time a person hears the news, it is not news at all, but opinion. It becomes a message of some kind, rather than fresh, straightforward news.

Decency is the absence of strategy.

It is of utmost importance to realize that the warrior’s approach should be simple-minded sometimes, very simple and straightforward. That makes it very beautiful: you having nothing up your sleeve; therefore a sense of genuineness comes through.

That is decency.”

~ Chögyam Trungpa

From “Perkiness,” a talk given to the Directors of Shambhala Training, July 1978

For more, I recommend this. Or this.