The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (6 page)

One of the things that made Chögyam Trungpa such a great teacher was that he was such a dedicated student—both in his formal studies in Tibet and at Oxford and also more generally throughout his life. He was truly a student of life, interested in if not fascinated by whatever he encountered. In the four articles on education that complete the offerings in Volume Two, we see his passion for learning as well as a deep appreciation for tradition. At a time when so many young people in America were rebelling against the forms of their society, Trungpa Rinpoche was offering them a way to make a genuine and lasting commitment to tradition and to participate in society without feeling imprisoned by it. In a way that was so characteristic of how he taught altogether, he saw their rebellion not as acting out
against
something but as a real thirst
for
something. Naropa University is, among many things, a tribute to his unshakable belief in the goodness and sanity of human beings and the great things that can come from a small, seemingly random spark of intelligence.

Taken as a whole, Volume Two demonstrates that the simplicity of meditation also encompasses the myriad facets of mind and leads us to a more open path, the mahayana, which values working with others as much as working on oneself. The subtleties of mind and meditation are many. This volume shows us Chögyam Trungpa’s unique ability to present a many-faceted view of these topics. It also expresses how seamlessly he was able to join together spiritual development with work in the world.

C
AROLYN
R
OSE
G
IMIAN

April 16, 2002

Trident Mountain House

Tatamagouche Mountain, Nova Scotia

1
. Trungpa Rinpoche’s root guru, Jamgön Kongtrül, was a Nyingma teacher, so in some sense Chögyam Trungpa belonged to both the Kagyü and Nyingma lineages. However, his first and primary lineage was that of the Karma Kagyü, which frequently is called either the Practicing or the Practice Lineage. The Nyingma lineage is also known as a lineage of great practitioners of meditation.

2
. When Trungpa Rinpoche first introduced slogan practice to his students in 1975, he relied on the translation of this text done in the early 1970s by Ken McLeod. This translation was published, together with a commentary on the slogans by Jamgön Kongtrül the Great, as
A Direct Path to Enlightenment
. Rinpoche praised Ken McLeod’s work but felt that, for the use of his students and in the context of the teachings he gave, he wanted to undertake his own translation of the text. In the preface to the 1987 edition of
The Great Path of Awakening
, a later version of McLeod’s translation of the slogans and the commentary, he mentions Chögyam Trungpa’s influence on his translation work and his appreciation for the teachings Trungpa Rinpoche gave on this material.

3
.
The Seven Points of Training the Mind
is published as a set of two-color, four- by six-inch cards and as a wall poster. These products are available in the United States through Samadhi Store, (800) 331-7751,
www.samadhistore.com
, and through Zigi Catalog, (303) 661-0034,
[email protected]
; in Canada through Drala Books and Gifts, (902) 422-2504; and in Europe through Alaya, (49) 6421-94088,
[email protected]
. The slogan cards are also available from the Nālandā Translation Committee, 1619 Edward Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 3H9, Canada.

4
. In the chapter “Practice and Intellect.”
Glimpses of Abhidharma
, the first book that Judith Lief worked on with Trungpa Rinpoche, was originally published in 1975 by the Vajradhatu Press, the forerunner of Vajradhatu Publications; it was picked up by Prajña Press, an imprint of Shambhala Publications, in 1978; in 1987 Shambhala Publications published
Glimpses of Abhidharma
in Shambhala Dragon Editions. It is now in the series of Shambhala Classics published by Shambhala Publications.

5
. The five issues of
Garuda
magazine were produced from 1970 to 1978. The first two were published in-house by Chögyam Trungpa’s communities in the United States; the remaining three were a joint venture with Shambhala Publications. The magazines combined edited transcripts of teachings given by Rinpoche with talks by his senior students or guest contributors, such as Herbert V. Guenther, as well as information on the spiritual life of the community.

6
. 1979
Hinayana-Mahayana Transcripts
, p. 12.

7
. Emma McCloy Layman,
Buddhism in America
(Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1976), p. 102.

8
. Chögyam Trungpa describes this meeting in “Space Therapy and the Maitri Community.” Also see the discussion in “Planting the Dharma in the West,” the 1976 epilogue to
Born in Tibet
.

9
. For information on the Mudra Theatre Group, see the introduction to Volume Seven.

10
. From remarks by Judith L. Lief, letter to Carolyn Gimian, February 2002.

11
. Ibid.

12
. A number of the articles on Buddhist psychology that appear in Volume Two of
The Collected Works
were published in this journal.

13
. Another article related to death and dying, “Acknowledging Death,” was included in
The Heart of the Buddha
and is found with that book in Volume Three. Material directly related to the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
is included in Volume Six of
The Collected Works
.

14
. From an address to the Naropa Institute Conference on Christian and Buddhist Meditation, August 9, 1983, as quoted in
Speaking in Silence
, edited by Susan Szpakowski.

15
. From entries dated October 20 and 22, 1968, in the
Asian Journal
as quoted in
Speaking in Silence
, edited by Susan Szpakowski.

16
. Trungpa Rinpoche contributed to two other issues of
Maitreya
. “Relationship” from
Maitreya IV
was included in
The Heart of the Buddha
, found in Volume Three of
The Collected Works
. “Femininity,” his contribution to
Maitreya V: Woman
, appears in Volume Six.

17
. Stephen Foehr, “Where East Meets West and Sparks Fly,”
Shambhala Sun
, vol. 8, no. 3 (January 2000), p. 44.

18
. Ibid., p. 46.

19
. Ibid., p. 44.

20
. For additional material on the founding and philosophy of Naropa Institute, see Fabrice Midal,
Trungpa
(Paris: Editions du Seuil, 2002), pp. 233-39. In general, this is an excellent book on the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa and their significance in relationship to events in his life and the development of his community in the West. This book is currently available only in French but is forthcoming in English translation from Shambhala Publications.

21
. See “Basic Training, Part Two: The Followers of Naropa,” from the video series
Thus I Have Heard
, published by Kalapa Recordings and Vajradhatu Publications, 2001.

22
. See both the introduction and
Illusion’s Game: The Life and Teaching of Naropa
.

23
. Thirty years later, it remains one of Chögyam Trungpa’s best-selling titles.

24
. See John Baker’s remarks in the introduction to Volume Three.

25
. See Volume Four.

26
. See Volume Seven for more discussion of the arts at Naropa.

27
. Personal communication from Martin Janowitz to Carolyn Rose Gimian, 2002.

T
HE
P
ATH
I
S THE
G
OAL

A Basic Handbook of

Buddhist Meditation

E
DITED BY
S
HERAB
C
HÖDZIN
K
OHN

Editor’s Foreword

T
HIS BOOK COMPRISES
two seminars given by the great Tibetan guru, the Vidyadhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, both dating from 1974. The first was given in March in New York, the second in September at Tail of the Tiger, a meditation center the Vidyadhara founded in Vermont, which was later renamed Karmê-Chöling. These seminars contain hitherto unpublished teachings of his on the view and practice of Buddhist meditation.

Traditional accounts tell us that at the time of the Buddha Shakyamuni’s enlightenment, he saw a vast panorama of beings throughout the six realms of existence, suffering in their ignorance through an endless round of attachment and disappointment, birth and death. In the literature of the Buddhist tradition we find other accounts of such visions of human suffering. A recent account concerns the Gyalwa Karmapa, Rikpe Dorje (1924–1982), who was the sixteenth incarnation in a line of enlightened hierarchs, heads of the Kagyü order of Buddhism in Tibet. It recounts an incident in his first journey, in the mid-seventies, out of the medieval Himalayan world he had known into the modern West. His first stop was Hong Kong, where his hosts took him to the top of a skyscraper. Standing on the observation platform, the Karmapa looked out with astonishment and delight at the vast view of the city below. Then, after a moment or two, he began to cry. He had to be helped inside by his attendants with tears pouring from his eyes. Later he explained that at the sight of the huge city with its teeming masses being born and struggling and dying without a shred of dharma to help them—“without,” as he said, “so much as an
OM MANI PADME HUM
”—he had been overcome by grief.

From these visions, we do not have to come far to arrive at the job description confronting Trungpa Rinpoche in America. The Vidyadhara was himself the eleventh incarnation in a line of enlightened spiritual and temporal rulers from eastern Tibet. When he arrived in North America as the sole representative of his lineage in 1970, he saw an exciting and vigorous culture, very full of itself, covering a vast continent. He saw at the same time myriads of individual people suffering through ignorance, through entrenched views about life and lots of aggressive speed. As he himself later described the situation, “Even with . . . encouragement, from the present lineage fathers and my devoted students, I have been left out in the cold as full-time garbageman, janitor, diaper service, and babysitter. So finally I alone have ended up as captain of this great vessel. I alone have to liberate its millions of passengers in this dark age. I alone have to sail this degraded samsaric ocean, which is very turbulent. With the blessings of the lineage, and because of my unyielding vow, there is obviously no choice.”
*
In 1970 the eleventh Trungpa Tülku was scarcely thirty. He had been trained intensively in intellectual and meditative disciplines from early childhood, and was regarded by Tibetans as a meditation master of extraordinarily high accomplishment, in full possession of his heritage of awakened mind. Only a few short years in England separated him from the rarefied, protected life of a Tibetan dharma prince. Now he was a penniless immigrant in America. Where to begin?

“The sitting practice of meditation,” the Vidyadhara told his listeners, “is the only way.” Brilliantly expounding the buddhadharma, he persuaded, cajoled, pleaded, commanded. He rapped the local lingo. He created suitable situations. He did everything he possibly could to get people to apply their bottoms to meditation cushions—except promise results. Only the practice of sitting meditation, as taught by the Buddha himself, could lay the groundwork for an authentic understanding of the Buddha’s teaching. If people could sit, and keep sitting, without looking for results, a gap could be created in ego’s defenses, and unconditional awareness could begin to shine through.

But ego furiously opposes unconditional awareness. And its key strategy against meditation’s assault, the Vidyadhara taught, is spiritual materialism. This is the attempt to make use of spiritual teachings for our own preconceived purposes. We would like to live longer, be healthier, stronger, more highly competent, more magnetic, more powerful, more highly admired, richer, and more and more invulnerable. What better vehicle toward these ends than profoundest ancient wisdom and techniques of mind training, honed by centuries of application? And if meditation can be tied to ambition, the heart of its power of liberation is gone.