Born in Tibet
Page 33
Yoga
literally ‘union’, the same root as the English word ‘yoke’. It denotes any specific method (including its theoretical premisses) of which the aim is to release the unitive Knowledge latent in the heart of man, by bringing under control the various dispersive tendencies of mind and body. A Yogi is one who practises such a method and, more especially, one who in virtue of the Knowledge thus awakened has qualified as a Master of this spiritual art.
INDEX
Note: Index entries from the print edition of this book have been included for use as search terms. They can be located by using the search feature of your e-book reader.
Akong Tulku
Apho Karma
Asang Lama
Bodhisattva vow
Bön religion
Buddha, the Lord. See Gotama, the Buddha
Chamdo (province)
Chamdo (town)
Dalai Lama
Dekyil (author’s birthplace). See also Geje
Derge, King of
Dorje Khyung Dzong
Dorje Tsering
Drölma Lhakhang
Dütsi Tel
Dzongsar
Eight Precepts
Gangshar, Khenpo
Geje. See also Dekyil
Gotama, the Buddha (also referred to as Shakyamuni)
Gyalwa Karmapa
Jamgön Kongtrül of Pepung
Jamgön Kongtrül of Sechen
Jigme Rinpoche
Jyekundo
Karma, monastery
Karma Tendzin
Khamtrül Rinpoche
Khyentse Rinpoche
Kino Tulku
Kyere
Lhasa
Lathog, King of
Maitreya Buddha
Manjushri, Bodhisattva
Mao Tse-tung
Marpa the Translator
Milarepa
Namgyal Tse
Naropa
Padmasambhava, Guru
Rölpa Dorje
Sephu, abbot of
Surmang
Taisitu Rinpoche of Pepung
Tamchö Tenphel
Thrangu
Trung Mase Rinpoche
Trungpa Tulku, tenth (author’s predecessor)
Tsepa
Tsethar
Tsongkhapa
Tsurphu
Tungtso Drölma (author’s mother)
Ugyen Tendzin
Yag
Yeshe Dargye (author’s father)
Yönten
Excerpt from Chögyam Trungpa by Chögyam Trungpa
eISBN 978-0-8348-2186-6
INTRODUCTION
CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA WAS A Buddhist teacher who was born in Tibet in 1940 and died in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1987. He was one of the first to teach Westerners, even living with them and sharing their lives.
There are numerous gurus who are known to be true heirs of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. But there is something unique about Chögyam Trungpa. It is difficult to define what is so singular about him, but this book offers an approach.
It is important to note that no other Tibetan guru has so distanced himself from his original culture. A commonly held belief is that spiritual practice is inseparable from its cultural context.
For many years, Zen masters considered that it was impossible to teach Buddhism to Westerners. So their first European disciples took up a Japanese lifestyle.
Chögyam Trungpa never wanted his students to become Tibetan. He believed that when Buddhism is transmitted to the West, it should give rise to a Western Buddhism, and this could only occur after profound reflection about the language and the culture in which the dharma could be established. Such was the huge task that Chögyam Trungpa undertook by immersing himself in the Western world. As he himself explained, becoming a Buddhist is not a matter of trying to live up to what you would like to be, but an attempt to be what you are: “This possibility is connected with seeing our confusion, or misery and pain, but not making these discoveries into an answer. Instead we explore further and further and further without looking for an answer. It is a process of working with ourselves, with our lives, with our psychology, without looking for an answer but seeing things as they are—seeing what goes on in our heads directly and simply, absolutely literally. If we can undertake a process like that, then there is a tremendous possibility that our confusion—the chaos and neurosis that goes on in our minds—might become a further basis for investigation.”1
With this in mind, Chögyam Trungpa paid constant attention to education. He set up several schools and a university; he organized interreligious meetings at a time when they were scarce (while showing a profound interest in Christianity and Judaism, as well as other schools of Buddhism that were little known in Tibet); he was extremely sensitive to the role played by artists, poets, painters, and musicians with whom he regularly worked. He met numerous members of the avant-garde of the time; he analyzed the West’s economic situation and how he could make a significant contribution to it; he gave thought to medicine and how to assuage the ills of the body as well as the mind; he became passionate about politics as a means of living in community and thought deeply about ecology and our relationship with our environment.
In many ways, Chögyam Trungpa is reminiscent of those stained-glass windows, made of a large number of facets, that decorate Gothic cathedrals. Like them, he dazzles you. The only inappropriate aspect of this analogy is that while such prolific richness can seem dazzling, such brilliance can also provoke the greatest terror when it exposes the depth of our own imbecility.
The word imbecile comes from the Latin imbecillus, which means “not having a stick.” An imbecile is someone with no leaning post. Caught in the web of thought’s changing fashions and habits, he has been lost in obscurity. This is just what Buddhism means by samsara, an endless circle spun by our beliefs and opinions, without the slightest attention to what really is.
The basis of Buddhism, like all authentic practices, is the affirmation that it is possible to find a genuine stick to lean on, that a real world does exist beyond the one we build for ourselves and try to adhere to, come what may.
In a period marked by cynicism, there is a good deal of provocation in the idea that there is a path that can reveal the possibility of living otherwise—in other words, that the aim of life is not to become a good consumer or producer.
In reality, such an idea is often downplayed. Most of the press, books, and seminars devoted to spirituality set about doing so, for various reasons. Buddhism is often presented as being an atheistic—or at best agnostic—teaching, which is scientific and rational, which can be diluted into the “values” of modern society. It is also presented as a form of psychological therapy leading to a better existence, or else as a bulwark providing cheap and easy protection against the stress of modern life.
When Buddhism is mingled with the West in such a way, not much of it is left.
But if more attention is paid to how Buddhism can be introduced into the West without being watered down by the media machine and the world of show business, then the work of Chögyam Trungpa becomes vital, because he was the first to warn us with prophetic clarity against the swamp we are sinking into ever deeper.
Chögyam Trungpa presented Buddhism in such a way that it can take root anywhere. He wanted its teachings to become part of everybody’s daily life and meaningful in our society.
Buddhism is not a religion, as he frequently explained; it is a way of life.2 Spirituality must not be a specific field, excluded from the social and secular world.
A presentation of Chögyam Trungpa cannot be limited to the work of the man, no matter how exceptional he was. It also entails examining a truly historic event: a completely novel meeting between the East and the West. Beyond Buddhism, Chögyam Trungpa decided to become an intrinsic part of our destiny so as to transform it—in other words, to liberate its dignity and greatness.
In writing this book, I considered several possible ways of presenting
Chögyam Trungpa. I immediately excluded the idea of writing a biography, because such a psychological approach seemed both reductive and inappropriate to the very notion of egolessness as explained in Buddhist teaching.
Furthermore, who can pretend to know what Chögyam Trungpa thought?
Walter Fordham lived with him for a long time and organized his domestic life. When I interviewed him, he told me that every time Chögyam Trungpa came back from a trip, Walter felt as though he didn’t know him anymore. He had changed so much that he seemed like a stranger. When you thought you knew who Chögyam Trungpa was, when you believed you had grasped your relationship with him, he broke down all your convictions. He never stayed still. As Walter told me: “I never knew who he was; he’ll always be a mystery for me. The trap some of his students fell into was to believe they had a personal relationship with him. No one was ever at ease with him. His relationship with us was more intimate than that. He completely saw through all of us, but at the same time the whole situation was so light. He was so passionate about who you were, while at the same time it didn’t matter.” This is why it seemed to me that describing Chögyam Trungpa’s personal experience would be impossible. No book could ever pretend to “grasp” such a man.
There was another possible approach: to produce a namthar, a traditional tale describing the life and teachings of a guru, written by his disciples. Such a project would imply a realization of his teachings, which is beyond my powers. Furthermore, it could not become truly meaningful in our modern world without being adapted and transformed, and thus disfigured.
Instead, I decided to sketch a series of portraits that would serve as a series of entrances into the world of Chögyam Trungpa.
Chögyam Trungpa is not a historical figure belonging to the past. He remains present in his works and continually offers us new ways to touch our hearts here and now.
Each chapter has been conceived as a facet of this work, capable of revealing a sacred vision—the capacity to see the beauty and space of all experience. The entirety of Chögyam Trungpa’s life and work was devoted to transmitting the spirit of enlightenment, and no encounter with him is ever superficial. This is why, wherever he went, people were waiting for him, lining up to greet him. This should not be seen as the expression of fanaticism or mere protocol, but instead as the burning desire to enter into contact with that space.
The life of Chögyam Trungpa surpasses all comparison. As we shall see, it shocked many people and continues to disturb others.
Great spiritual masters abandon all conventions and require no recognition. They are ready to take any number of risks in order to communicate enlightenment to their disciples: The master “constantly challenges his students to step beyond themselves, to step out into the vast and brilliant world of reality in which he abides. The challenge that he provides is not so much that he is always setting hurdles or egging them on. Rather, his authentic presence is a constant challenge to be genuine and true.”3
But such excess cannot become meaningful only in the context that produced it. Certain surprising things he did can seem shocking today, and may also have seemed brutal or crazy at the time, but thanks to them the persons they were aimed at were able to open fully. It is thus difficult to judge them now. But any attempt to conceal his more disconcerting side would also water down the character of Chögyam Trungpa. I have tried to find a happy medium between this and the essential message of his work, while constantly examining the question of how Chögyam Trungpa had the power, and still has the power today, to enlighten us.
1. Crazy Wisdom, pp. 9–10.
2. See, for example, “Buddhism is not a national religious approach,” Crazy Wisdom, p. 55, and “I don’t think Buddhism should be regarded as a religion, but as a social realization,” in Annual Report to the Sangha, 1985–1986, Vajradhatu Publications.
3. Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior (Shambhala Library, 2003), p. 210.
Chapter One
PORTRAIT OF CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA IN 1970
PHOTO: Chögyam Trungpa teaching at Tail of the Tiger, at the beginning of the 1970s. Photographer unknown. Shambhala Archives.
This person called Mr. Mukpo here is a very ordinary person. He has simply escaped out of Tibet because of the Chinese communist suppression. He is looking for possible ways to relate with the world outside of that Tibetan world and trying to share with people how he feels about his own practice, and his own feelings about what he has studied, what he has learned. That’s simply what we’re doing right here.1
—CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA
1. Encounter with Hippie America
Chögyam Trungpa meets the hippie generation
In March 1970, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche moved to the United States after seven years’ residence in England.2 The hippie movement was in full swing. An entire generation had made its mark with its distinctive lifestyle, spirit of spontaneity, and rejection of the Establishment. Young people were questioning and protesting their elders’ way of life. The result was a unique moment in Western culture. Inspired by writers of the Beat Generation, such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, the hippies ridiculed narrow-minded middle-class conformity and advocated the use of “mind-expanding” drugs such as marijuana and LSD as keys to freedom. The hippie lifestyle varied from “back to the land” communes or communal city “pads” to nomadic wanderings across the United States. Many were “flower children” who engaged in antiwar demonstrations under the sign of peace and love. Hippies were involved in a variety of experimental practices ranging from psychedelics and free love to art and mysticism, all in a spirit of highly undisciplined curiosity. Among the spiritually inclined, Hindu chanting, yoga, and Zen became popular as counterculture alternatives to conventional religious teachings and practices.
No matter how naive these young people were in their desire for a world of “peace and love,” their open-mindedness—and even their confusion—created a fertile ground for the arrival of Buddhism. It was in just this context that Rinpoche (Chögyam Trungpa’s honorific title, meaning “precious jewel” in Tibetan) succeeded in setting up one of the first-ever communities of practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, which is still among the most important ones today. His achievements were prodigious: he introduced the Buddhist tradition in all its depth and trained one of his Western followers to become his successor and regent; founded a university (Naropa Institute, now called Naropa University), schools for children, and a program of secular education (Shambhala Training); started a new tradition of contemplative psychology (Maitri Space Awareness) and a theater school (Mudra Space Awareness); and published many books and collections of poetry as well as creating artworks as a calligrapher and photographer.
But all of this is not purely the work of one isolated individual; it is rather the result of a meeting between a man and a generation, whose deepest aspirations he was able to embody. In entering into direct contact with the hippie movement, Chögyam Trungpa responded to the quest for authenticity and freedom that the hippies had expressed in such a confused way.
As early as 1970, Chögyam Trungpa was speaking the same language as the young; he dressed in the same casual attire as they, and partook of the alcohol and drugs they favored. He ate the same food and slept in houses with them, sometimes on a bare floor. Chögyam Trungpa did not want to be seen as a distant master to be placed on a pedestal, but rather as someone with whom it was possible to have a frank, direct relationship. Moreover, at the time, Tibetan Buddhism was practically unknown in the West, and so it made sense to abandon the exotic trappings of a lama and meet people on their own ground.
True communication beyond hypocrisy
Diana Pybus Mukpo, whom Chögyam Trungpa had just married in Scotland,3 recalls an encounter that illustrates her husband’s manner at the time. They had not been in the States for very long when, one day, a young American hippie dressed as an East Indian came to their house. He went upstairs, saw Chögyam Trungpa, and asked, “I’ve come
a long way to see the guru. Where is he? I need to see him!” Chögyam Trungpa replied that he didn’t know and that the young man must have been given the wrong address. The American went back downstairs, disappointed. Diana advised him to go back up and take a second look.
To be sure, it was hard to imagine that this man, then aged thirty-one, wearing jeans and sometimes a rather loud cowboy shirt left unbuttoned at the top, was a guru. He even smoked and drank whiskey. His very appearance upset conventional ideas of what constituted a spiritual master.
In his early years in the United States, Chögyam Trungpa thus presented himself very simply. He met people in the most direct manner possible. Being an honest person, he did not hide the fact that he was not bound by ordinary conventions, whether they were what Westerners typically expected of him or the conventions acquired during his upbringing. As a young tülku (incarnate lama) in Tibet, he had been waited on by servants and had learned to sit still on an elevated throne while his visitors treated him with the respect due to his rank. Westerners had a very narrow vision of how the wisdom of Oriental sages was supposed to present itself. The commonly held opinion was, and still is, that wisdom manifests itself as disembodied calm in every circumstance.
But nothing could be farther from the true wisdom that Chögyam Trungpa taught and displayed. According to him, wisdom derives from a “complete experience”4—no matter what that experience may be.5 The purpose of the spiritual path is not, as young people then imagined, to attain to some ethereal existence in which the passions of life are replaced with a superior detachment, but is instead a way of being fully human: “Spirituality, from a superficial point of view, is based on the idea of making things harmonious. But somehow . . . that approach does not apply. The idea is not so much to make things harmonious and less active, but to relate with what is happening, with whatever struggles and upheavals are going on—trying to survive, to earn more dollars, get more food, more room, a roof over our heads, and so on.”6