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During the twenty-year period of his remarkable proclamation of Buddhist and Shambhala teachings in the West, calligraphy was a primary means of expression for Chögyam Trungpa. This book showcases sixty-one of his brushworks-poems, seed syllables, and phrases as well as abstracts. Facing them are short, pertinent quotations from his prose and poetry. An essay entitled "Heaven, Earth, and Man," based on one of Trungpa's "dharma art" workshops, is also included. Here he emphasizes what he called "art in everyday life:" the cool, peaceful expression of unconditional beauty that offers us the possibility of being able to relax enough to perceive the phenomenal world and our own senses properly. He goes on to show how the dynamic of heaven, earth, and man (the ancient Oriental hierarchy of the cosmos) is basic to any artistic endeavor -- whether painting, building a city, or designing an airplane -- as well as to perceiving the art that surrounds us. He also introduces the idea that "the discipine of art-making" -- the meditative relationship to space along with the artist's point of view -- can be used to organize and create a decent society. Born in Tibet Chögyam Trungpa was identified at the age of only thirteen months as a major tulku, or reincarnation of an enlightened teacher. As the eleventh in the teaching lineage known as the Trungpa tulkus, he underwent a period of intensive training in meditation, philosophy, and fine arts, receiving full ordination as a monk in 1958 at the age of eighteen. The following year, the Chinese communists invaded Tibet, and the young Trungpa spent many months escaping over the Himalayas, narrowly escaping capture. Trungpa’s account of his experiences as a young monk, his duties as the abbot and spiritual head of a great monastery, and his moving relationships with his teachers offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the life of a Tibetan lama. The memoir concludes with his daring escape from Tibet to India. In an epilogue, he describes his emigration to the West, where he encountered many people eager to learn about the ancient wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism “Walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle
process; it is not something to jump into naively. First discussed are the various ways in which people involve themselves in spiritual materialism, the many forms of self-deception into which aspirants may fall. After this tour of the sidetracks along the way, the broad outlines of the true spiritual path are discussed. The approach presented is a classical Buddhist one -- not in a formal sense, but in the sense of presenting the heart of the Buddhist approach to spirituality. Although the Buddhist way is not theistic, it does not contradict the theistic disciplines. Rather the differences between the ways are a matter of emphasis and method. The basic problems of spiritual materialism are common to all spiritual disciplines. Index
“Crazy Wisdom" is described by Trungpa, Rinpoche, as an innocent state of mind that has the quality of early morning -- fresh, sparkling, and completely awake. Drawing on the life of Padmasambhava -- the Indian teacher who brought Buddhism to Tibet -- he illustrates the principle of crazy wisdom as the starting point for an exciting spiritual journey. From this profound point of view, spiritual practice does not provide comfortable answers to pain or confusion. On the contrary, painful emotions can be appreciated as a challenging opportunity for new discovery. In particular, Rinpoche discusses meditation as a practical way to uncover one’s own innate wisdom in the midst of everyday life. "Dharma art" refers to creative works that spring from the awakened meditative state, characterized by directness, unselfconsciousness, and nonaggression. Trungpa, Rinpoche, shows that dharma art provides a way to appreciate the nature of things as they are and to express that appreciation without any struggle or ambition. The Dignity of the Artist -- A work of dharma art brings out the goodness and dignity of the situation it reflects -- dignity that comes from the artist's interest in the details of life and sense of appreciation for experience. Study the Traditions -- At the same time, the author stresses the need for artists to study their craft, develop skill, and absorb knowledge and insight passed down by tradition. And, finally, he extends the principles of dharma art to everyday life, showing how any activity can provide an opportunity to relax and open ourselves to the phenomenal world. Artwork by the Author -- Among the twenty black-and-white illustrations are artworks by the author including photographs, paintings, calligraphies, and flower arrangements. Index
Trungpa, Rinpoche, was an accomplished and renowned poet. This book is a collection of poetry written in the late sixties through the early eighties. Index
Abidharma is an aspect of Buddhist psychology based on direct examination of the various aspects of conscious experience. Here Trungpa, Rinpoche, begins at the beginning, with the "Five Skandas," form, feeling, perception, concept, and consciousness: the fundamental building blocks of each moment of awareness. For those familiar with other works on Abidharma, this approach may seem odd -- the usual lists of lists of categories of sense qualities and emotions and so on are missing. The author has chosen to emphasize the features common to every experience, and to help us see them as our life. It all comes together in a chapter on "Auspicious Coincidence." Index
This compelling collection of essays, talks, and seminars by Chögyam Trungpa presents the basic teachings of Buddhism as they relate to everyday life. The book is divided into three parts. In "Personal Journey," the author discusses the qualities of openness, inquisitiveness, and good humor that characterize the enlightened Buddha nature in everyone. In "Stages on the Path," he presents the three vehicles -- Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana -- that carry the Buddhist practitioner toward enlightenment. In "Working with Others," he describes the direct application of Buddhist teachings in such areas as relationships, children, and money. Chögyam Trungpa's great appreciation of Western culture combined with his deep understanding of the Tibetan tradition makes these teachings uniquely accessible to Western readers. In what he calls a "200 percent potent" teaching, the author reveals how the spiritual path is often a raw and rugged "unlearning" process that draws us away from the comfort of conventional expectations and conceptual attitudes toward a naked encounter with reality. The tantric paradigm for this process is the story of the Indian master Naropa (1016- 1100), who is among the enlightened teachers of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, which also includes Tilopa, Marpa, Milarepa, Gampopa, and the Karmapas. Naropa was an important scholar at Nalanda, the Buddhist monastic university, when he embarked upon the lonely and arduous path to enlightenment. After a series of daunting trials, he was prepared to receive the direct transmission of the awakened state of mind from his guru, Tilopa. The teachings that he received, known as the six doctrines of Naropa, have been passed down in the lineages of Tibetan Buddhism for a millennium. Trungpa's commentary shows the relevance of Naropa's extraordinary journey for today's practitioners. Naropa's story makes it possible to delineate in very concrete terms the various levels of spiritual development that lead to the student's readiness to meet the teacher's mind. Trungpa thus opens to Western students of Buddhism the path of devotion and surrender to the guru as the embodiment and representative of reality. Trungpa Rinpoche introduces the principles of tantra, based on the practice of meditation, which leads to the discovery of egolessness. He provides a direct and experiential picture of the tantric world, explaining the importance of self-existing energy, the mandala principle, differences between Buddhist and Hindu tantra -- stressing the nontheistic foundation of Buddhism. The role of the teacher and the meaning of tantric transmission are also presented. This book is based on two historic seminars in which Chögyam Trungpa introduced tantric teachings to his students. Each seminar bore the title "the Nine Vehicles." These nine make up the whole path of Buddhist practice. Trungpa Rinpoche's non-theoretical, experiential approach opens up a world of fundamental insights. Index
This classic teaching continues to inspire both beginner and long-time practitioners of Buddhist meditation. Trungpa, Rinpoche, shows that meditation extends beyond the formal practice of sitting to build the foundation for compassion, awareness, and creativity in all aspects of life. He explores the six activities associated with meditation in action -- generosity, discipline, patience, energy, clarity, and wisdom -- revealing that through simple, direct experience, one can attain real wisdom: the ability to see clearly into situations and deal with them skillfully, without the self-consciousness connected with ego. Mudra A collection of early poetry and essays. Includes two very inspiring translations of teachings on Maha Ati, the ultimate view of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, plus the "Ox Herding" pictures from the Zen tradition. Freedom is generally thought of as the ability to achieve
goals and satisfy desires. But what are the sources of these goals and
desires? In this book, Trungpa Rinpoche explores the meaning of freedom in the profound context of Tibetan Buddhism. He shows how our attitudes, preconceptions, and even our spiritual practices can become chains that bind us to repetitive patterns of frustration and despair. He also explains the role of meditation in bringing into focus the causes of frustration and in allowing these negative forces to become aids in advancing toward true freedom. Trungpa’s unique ability to express the essence of Buddhist teachings in the language and imagery of contemporary American culture makes this book one of the most immediately available sources for the meaning of the Buddhist doctrine ever written. According to the mandala principle, a prominent feature of tantric Buddhism, all phenomena are part of one reality. Whether good or bad, happy or sad, clear or obscure, everything is interrelated and reflects a single totality. As Chögyam Trungpa explains in this book, from the perspective of the mandala principle, existence is orderly chaos. There is chaos and confusion because everything happens by itself, without any external ordering principle. At the same time, whatever happens expresses order and intelligence, wakeful energy and precision. Through meditative practices associated with the mandala princliple, the opposites of experience -- confusion and enlightenment, chaos and order, pain and pleasure -- are revealed as inseperatble parts of a total vision of reality. According to the Buddha, no one can attain basic sanity or enlightenment without practicing meditation. The teachings given here on basic meditation -- shamatha and vipashyana, mindfulness and awareness -- provide the foundation that every practitioner needs to awaken as the Buddha did. Trungpa teaches us to let go of the urge to make meditation serve our ambition; thus we can relax into openness. We are shown that the deliberate practice of mindfulness develops into uncontrived awareness, and we discover the world of insight that awareness reveals. We learn of a subtle psychological stage set that we carry with us everywhere and unwittingly use to structure all our experience -- and we find that meditation gradually carries us beyond this and beyond ego altogether to the experience of unconditioned freedom. In this classic guide to enlightened living, Trungpa Rinpoche
offers an inspiring vision for our time, based on the ideal of the sacred
warrior. and Chögyam Trungpa. The Tibetan word bardo is usually associated with life after death. Here, Chögyan Trungpa discusses bardo in a very different sense: as the peak experience of any given moment. Our experience of the present moment is always colored by one of the six psychological states: the god realm (bliss), the jealous god realm (jealousy and lust for entertainment), the human realm (passion and desire), the animal realm (ignorance), the hungry ghost realm (poverty and possessiveness), and the hell realm (aggression and hatred). In relating these realms to the six traditional Buddhist
bardo experiences, Trungpa, Rinpoche, provides an insightful look at the
"madness" of our familiar psychological patterns and shows how they present
an opportunity to transmute daily experience into freedom.
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There
are numerous sidetracks which lead to a distorted, ego-centered version
of spirituality; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing
spiritually when instead we are stengthening our egocentricity through
spiritual techniques. This fundamental distortion may be referred to as
spiritual materialism.”
If
they arise from ignorance, habitual patterns, and negative emotions --
psychologically destructive elements that actually enslave us -- is the
freedom to pursue them true freedom or just a myth?
In
ancient times, the warrior learned to master the challenges of life, both
on and off the battlefield. Trungpa shows that in discovering the basic
goodness of human life, the warrior learns to radiate that goodness into
the world for the peace and sanity of others. With this book the warrior’s
path is opened to modern men and women in search of practical wisdom.
