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Biography

Youth

Chögyam Trungpa was born as Dorje Dradul of the Tibetan clam Mukpo[1] during February of 1939 in the Kham region of Tibet, near the village of Geje. At eighteen months of age he was recognized by the 16th Karmapa as the Eleventh Trungpa tülku of the Kagyü order, believed to be the reincarnation of the Tenth Trungpa (who had died in 1938). Before turning six, trungpa was already in intensive study from five in the morning until eight at night. By age eight he was ordained as a shramanera (or novice monk) and had completed intensive meditation retreats, and by age twelve he had completed ngöndro. He also had two of the most prolific teachers of Tibet guiding him, Jamgon Kongtrul, Dilgo Khyentse and Khenpo Gangshar.[2][3][4]


By his late teens Trungpa had been installed as head abbot of the Surmang monasteries.[5] In 1959 Trungpa accompanied a group of Tibetan refugees to India, fleeing Chinese Communist Tibet. The 14th Dalai Lama appointed him as an advisor to a school in Dalhousie, India known as The Young Lamas Home School, in which capacity he served from 1959 through 1963.[6][7][8]

Education

In 1963, accompanied by ex-abbot of Drölma Lhakhang monastery Chujé Akong Rinpoché, Trungpa sailed to England where he undertook studies at St. Anthony's College, Oxford under a Spaulding Fellowship. There he studied comparative religion, philosophy, fine arts and English.[9][6]


In 1966 he authored the book Born In Tibet.


In 1967 Trungpa, together with Chujé Akong Rinpoché, opened the first European Tibetan monastery in a declining old house, located in Dumfriesshire, Scotland (naming it Samye Ling). In 1968 he attended an interfaith meeting held in Calcutta, India, encountering Thomas Merton shortly before the Cistercian monk's death in Thailand. In 1969, back at Samye Ling, Trungpa crashed his car through the window of a local business one night (partially paralyzing his left side permanantly). He subsequently stopped observing his monastic vows. While this rebellious maneuver helped to a attract younger counterculture audience to him, it also attracted controversy and alienated some of his previous followers. Samye Ling soon became known to the locals as a place where wild parties, drug use and free sex were said to take place. Trungpa also authored his famous work Meditation in Action during this period, which brought his teachings to a much larger audience. Soon he married the sixteen year old Diana Pybus, from a wealthy English household, much to the dismay of his Tibetan counterpart Akong Rinpoché. This caused considerable conflict between himself and his colleague, as well as the general community at Samye Ling. He soon set his sights on America, severing relations with Akong Rinpoché in the process.[10][11][6][2]


In 1970 he arrived in the United States and started opening Dharma centres. The first centre, located in Barnet, Vermont, was named Tail of the Tiger (today known as Karmê-Chöling). He also started another community, Karma Dzong, in Boulder, Colorado that year, and taught that summer at the University of Colorado. An unconventional character, by this time Trungpa was known to dress up in suits, eat steak, smoke cigarettes, and drink alcohol.[2] He founded the international organization known as the Vajradhatu Society in 1973, which brought his loose network of Dharma centers together. Then in 1974 he established Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, originally open for summer. The original faculty was comprised of Ram Dass, John Cage, Allan Ginsberg, Agehananda Bharati, Gregory Bateson, Anne Waldman, Herbert Guenther and Trungpa himself.[12][11]


Chokyi Gyatso[13]

Shambhala

In 1976, Trungpa began giving teachings, some of which were gathered and presented as the Shambhala Training,[14] inspired by his vision (see terma) of the legendary Kingdom of Shambhala. Trungpa had actually started writing about Shambhala before his 1959 escape from Tibet to India, but most of those writings were lost.[7]. Trungpa believed himself to be an emissary from Shambhala, which in Tibetan tradition is a mythical kingdom hidden somewhere beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas; to Trungpa, Shambhala resides directly in the middle, or heart, of Asia. As an emissary for Shambhala, Trungpa was referred to as Lord Ösel Mukpo, and he taught that the tradition of the samurai in Japan, the Magyar warrior class of Hungary, and the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table were all examples of Shambhala leaving an imprint on humanity.[15] He taught that in Shambhala spirituality is a secular practice, manifested by one's interaction with the whole of their environment and experience. As such, he taught that to realize Shambhala human beings must interact with society, and thus permitted students to hold jobs and marry so as to allow them to see all aspects of life from a viewpoint of wisdom. Thus, while Trungpa's Shambhala teachings have their grounding in an ancient Tibetan tradition, they offer practitioners a path of enlightenment that is more secular.[16]

Death

On April 4 1987, after several years marked by alcohol-related health problems and a lower public profile, Trungpa died in an intensive care unit in Halifax, Nova Scotia.[6]

Criticisms

"Crazy wisdom is absolute perceptiveness, with fearlessness and bluntness. Fundamentally, it is being wise, but not holding to particular doctrines or disciplines or formats. There aren't any books to follow. Rather, there is endless spontaneity taking place. There is room for being blunt, room for being open. That openness is created by the environment itself. In fact, at that level of crazy wisdom, all activity is created by the environment. The crazy wisdom person is just an activator, just one of the conditions that have evolved in the environment."[17]

Chögyam Trungpa

Chögyam Trungpa's style of teaching was often unconventional.[18] In his own words, "When we talk about compassion we talk in terms of being kind. But compassion is not so much being kind; it is being creative to wake a person up."[19] He did not encourage his students to imitate his own behavior, and he was troubled by those who felt empowered by his example to do whatever they wanted and manipulate people. As the third Jamgön Kongtrül explained in a teaching given to students of Chögyam Trungpa, 'You shouldn't imitate or judge the behavior of your teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, unless you can imitate his mind.'"[14]

Trungpa was a teacher that often behaved outrageously, linked by some to a tradition not unheard of in Tibet which he called crazy wisdom. What Trungpa refers to as crazy wisdom apparently has a long and complex history in Tibetan Buddhism, which is often manifested by outwardly outrageous behaviors by the enlightened. Trungpa never made secret his excessive drinking or sexual relationships with female students, to whom he referred to as consorts.[20]

Drugs

According to writer Rick Fields in a Fall 1996 article ran in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review titled A High History of Buddhism: From Acid to Demon Juice, Trungpa had also dabbled in some LSD use in the 1970s. Apparently Trungpa saw a usefulness in the drug, which he believed induced an experience that he called "super-samsara". His official stance continued to be that the use of any illicit drugs in his community would not to be tolerated, however. He retained a special dislike for marijuana, which he said the effects of which imitate meditation. This was the source of some tension between himself and certain members of his hippie community who frequently used marijuana. Trungpa specifically targeted a group of hippies that called themselves The Pygmies, holding a meeting at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center to inform them that marijuana use is a form of self-deception. He convinced many students to burn their marijuana in a large fire, which resulted in a physical altercation between himself and a student.[21]

References

  1. ^ MacEowen, Frank Henderson (2002). The Mist-Filled Path: Celtic Wisdom for Exiles, Wanderers, and Seekers. New World Library. pp. 272 pages (p. 123). ISBN 1577312112.
  2. ^ a b c Paine, Jeffrey (2004). Re-Enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 288 pages (p. 82, 86). ISBN 0393019683.
  3. ^ Urban, Hugh B. (2003). Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion. University of California Press. pp. 388 pages (p. 231). ISBN 0520236564.
  4. ^ Chödrön, Pema (2000). When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. Shambhala. pp. 148 pages (p. 139). ISBN 1570623449.
  5. ^ Butler-Bowdon, Tom (2005). 50 Spiritual Classics. Nicholas Brealey Publishing. pp. 320 pages (p. 275). ISBN 1857883497.
  6. ^ a b c d Batchelor, Stephen (1994). The Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture. Parallax Press. pp. 418 pages (p. 104). ISBN ISBN 0938077694. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  7. ^ a b Midal, Fabrice (2005). Recalling Chögyam Trungpa. Shambhala. pp. 481 pages (p. 414, pp. 363-364). ISBN 1590302079.
  8. ^ Prebish, Charles S. (1999). Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America. University of California Press. pp. 345 pages (p. 163). ISBN ISBN 0520216970. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  9. ^ Snelling, John (1999). The Buddhist Handbook: A Complete Guide to Buddhist Schools, Teaching, Practice and History. Inner Traditions / Bear & Company. pp. 373 pages (p. 211). ISBN 0892817615.
  10. ^ Clarke, Peter Bernard (2006). New Religions in Global Perspective. Routledge. pp. 385 pages (p. 91). ISBN 0415257484.
  11. ^ a b Lopez, Donald S. (2002). A Modern Buddhist Bible: Essential Readings from East and West. Beacon Press. pp. 304 pages (p. 244). ISBN 0807012432.
  12. ^ Queen, Christopher S. (2000). Engaged Buddhism in the West. Wisdom Publications. pp. 560 pages (p. 330). ISBN 0861711599.
  13. ^ Wittmann, Ellen Herson (Fall 2000), "Tibet I: Lama on the Lam", Religion in the News, 3 (3){{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  14. ^ a b Midal, Fabrice (2004). Chögyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision. Shambhala. pp. 480 pages (p. 233-247, p. 160). ISBN 159030098X.
  15. ^ Sachs, Robert (2006). The Buddha at War: Peaceful Heart, Courageous Action in Troubled Times. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. pp. 242 pages (p. 20). ISBN 1842931830.
  16. ^ McLeaod, Melvin;, Midal, Fabrice (2006). Mindful Politics: A Buddhist Guide to Making the World a Better Place. Wisdom Publications. pp. 304 pages (p. 89-90). ISBN 0861712986.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ Nicholson, Shirley (1987). Shamanism: An Expanded View of Reality. Quest Books. pp. p. 70. ISBN 0835606171. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  18. ^ Faulk, Geoffrey D. (2007). Stripping the Gurus: Sex, Violence, Abuse and Enlightenment. Million Monkeys Press. p. 536. ISBN 0973620315.
  19. ^ Giamian, Carolyn, Trungpa, Chögyam (2004). The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, Volume 6. Shambhala. pp. 608 pages (p. 541). ISBN 1590300300.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  20. ^ Boucher, Sandy (1993). Turning the Wheel: American Women Creating the New Buddhism. Beacon Press. pp. (p. 240). ISBN 0807073059.
  21. ^ Fields, Rick (Fall 1996). "A High History of Buddhism: From Acid to Demon Juice". Tricycle:The Buddhist Review. 6 (1). ISSN 1055-484X. Retrieved 2007-12-07. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
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