Chögyam Trungpa (Wylie: Chos rgyam Drung pa; March 5, 1939 – April 4, 1987), formally named the 11th Zurmang Trungpa, Chokyi Gyatso, was a Tibetan Buddhist master and holder of both Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. He was recognized by both Tibetan Buddhists and other spiritual practitioners and scholarsMidal, 2005Luminous passage: the practice and study of Buddhism in America By Charles S. Prebish; p44 as a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. He was a major figure in the dissemination of Buddhism in the West,"Exceptional as one of the first Tibetan lamas to become fully assimilated into Western culture, he made a powerful contribution in revealing the Tibetan approach to inner peace in the West." The Dalai Lama, "A message from his Holiness, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama" in Recalling Chogyam Trungpa Ed. Fabrice Midal; pp ix–x founding Vajradhatu and Naropa University and establishing the Shambhala Training method. The 11th of the Trungpa tülkus, he was a tertön, supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and originator of Shambhala Buddhist tradition.
Among Trungpa's contributions are the translation of numerous Tibetan Buddhist texts, the introduction of the Vajrayana teachings to the West, and a presentation of Buddhism largely devoid of traditional trappings. Trungpa popularized the term "crazy wisdom", referring to some spiritual masters' unconventional and flamboyant teaching methods. Some of his own methods and actions, particularly his heavy drinking, sexual predation, and his ordering of the sexual assault (forced stripping) of a student and his girlfriend, caused controversy during his lifetime and afterward.
Biography Early years
Born in the Nangchen region of Tibet in March 1939, Chögyam Trungpa was eleventh in the line of Trungpa tülkus, important figures in the Kagyu lineage, one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Among his three main teachers were Jamgon Kongtrul of Sechen, HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and Khenpo Gangshar.
The name Chögyam is a contraction of Chökyi Gyamtso (), which means "Ocean of Dharma". Trungpa () means "attendant". He was deeply trained in the Kagyu tradition and received his khenpo degree at the same time as Thrangu Rinpoche; they continued to be very close in later years. Chögyam Trungpa was also trained in the Nyingma tradition, the oldest of the four schools, and was an adherent of the ri-mé ("nonsectarian") ecumenical movement within Tibetan Buddhism, which aspired to bring together and make available all the valuable teachings of the different schools, free of sectarian rivalry.
At the time of his escape from Tibet, Trungpa was head of the Surmang group of monasteries.
Escape from Tibet
On April 23, 1959, the 20-year-old Trungpa set out on a nine-month escape from his homeland.Trungpa, Chögyam (1966). Born in Tibet.164MacLean, Grant (2016). From Lion's Jaws: Chögyam Trungpa's Epic Escape To The West Masked in his account in Born in Tibet to protect those left behind,Trungpa, Chögyam (1966). Born in Tibet. the first, preparatory stage of his escape had begun a year earlier, when he fled his home monastery after its occupation by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).From Lion's Jaws, 65–69. After spending the winter in hiding, he decided definitively to escape after learning that his monastery had been destroyed.Born in Tibet. 164 Trungpa started with Akong Rinpoche and a small party of Buddhist monastics, but as they traveled people asked to join until the party eventually numbered 300 refugees, from the elderly to mothers with babies. Even the Queen of Nangchen joined for a period. These additions greatly slowed and complicated the journey. Forced to abandon their animals, over half the journey was on foot as the refugees journeyed through an untracked mountain wilderness to avoid the PLA troops. Sometimes lost, sometimes traveling at night, after three months they reached the Brahmaputra River. Trungpa, the monastics and about 70 refugees managed to cross the river under heavy gunfire,Born in Tibet.230 then, eating their leather belts and bags to survive, they climbed 19,000 feet over the Himalayas before reaching the safety of Pema Ko.Born in Tibet.239 After reaching India, on January 24, 1960, the party was flown to a refugee camp.Born in Tibet.248From Lion's Jaws.270
Between 2006 and 2010, independent Canadian and French researchers using satellite imagery tracked and confirmed Trungpa's escape route. In 2012, five survivors of the escape in Nepal, Scotland, and the United States confirmed details of the journey and supplied their personal accounts.From Lion's Jaws.10–12. In 2016 accumulated research and survivors' stories were published in a full retelling of the story, and later in the year preliminary talks began on the funding and production of a movie.
Early teachings in the West
The 16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, was known for seeing the future and made plans accordingly. In 1954, shortly after giving Trungpa the monastic vows, the Karmapa turned to him and said, "In the future you will bring Dharma to the West". At the time, Trungpa wondered what he could be talking about.Bausch, Gerd, Radiant Compassion, The Life of the 16th Gyalway Karmapa, Volume 1, 2018 pp. 164–165
In exile in India, Trungpa began his study of English. Freda Bedi then initiated a project with Trungpa and Akong Tulku called the Young Lamas Home School in Dalhousie, India. After seeking endorsement from the 14th Dalai Lama, they were appointed its spiritual director and administrator respectively.From Lion's Jaws.284
In 1963, with the assistance of Bedi and other sympathetic Westerners, Trungpa received a grant from the Spalding Trust to spend time at Oxford, and was granted "common room" access to St Antony's College, at Oxford University. Akong Rinpoche and another monk shared a flat with Trungpa.
In 1966, after the departure of the western Theravadin monk Ananda Bodhi, the Johnstone House Trust in Scotland invited Trungpa and Akong to take over Ananda Bodhi's meditation center, which in 1967 became Samye Ling, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the West. Musician David Bowie"Bringing Chogyam Trungpa's "Crazy Wisdom" to the screen " had been one of Ananda Bodhi's meditation students there.
Shortly after his move to Scotland in 1966–67, a variety of experiences including his interactions with his Western students, a solitary retreat in Bhutan, and a car accident that left him partially paralyzed on the left side of his body, led Trungpa to disrobe and return his monastic vows in 1969, in order to work as a lay teacher.Born in Tibet, 1977 edition, Epilogue He made that decision principally to mitigate students' becoming distracted by exotic cultures and dress and to undercut their preconceptions of how a guru should behave. He drank, smoked, slept with students, and often kept students waiting for hours before giving teachings. Much of his behavior has been construed as deliberately provocative and sparked controversy. In one account, he encouraged students to give up smoking marijuana, claiming that the smoking was not of benefit to their spiritual progress and that it exaggerated neurosis. Students were often angered, unnerved and intimidated by him, but many remained fiercely loyal, committed, and devoted.
In January 1970, he married his student Diana Pybus, with whom he moved to North America. Akong stayed in Scotland at Samye Ling. Trungpa landed in Ontario, and made deeper connections into Nova Scotia. They soon moved to the United States at the invitation of several students, and traveled mostly to Vermont, California, and Colorado, where he was gaining renown for his ability to present Buddhism in a form readily understandable to Western students. He settled in Boulder, Colorado, and grew his sanghas of students. During this period, he conducted 13 Vajradhatu Seminaries, three-month residential programs at which he presented a vast body of Buddhist teachings in an atmosphere of intensive meditation practice. "The seminaries also had the important function of training his students to become teachers themselves."http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/chogyam-trungpa.php
Introduction of the Vajrayana Trungpa was one of the first teachers to introduce Tibetan Buddhism and the Vajrayana to the West.Interview with Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche; 17 September 2003 , after As in Tibet, the schools of the Vajrayana Buddhism and their practices are the domain of everyone, including the monastic sangha, the vow-holding sangha, and the lay sangha. In the United States, Trungpa introduced the Vajrayana mostly to the lay sangha.Dead but not lost: grief narratives in religious traditions By Robert Goss, Dennis Klass; p74
The presentation of these teachings gave rise to some criticism. According to Trungpa's former student Stephen Butterfield, "Trungpa told us that if we ever tried to leave the Vajrayana, we would suffer unbearable, subtle, continuous anguish, and disasters would pursue us like furies".Butterfield 11 Other Vajrayana teachers also warn their students about the dangers of the path.
Butterfield said, "to be part of Trungpa's inner circle, you had to take a vow never to reveal or even discuss some of the things he did." But Butterfield also said, "This personal secrecy is common with gurus, especially in Vajrayana Buddhism",Butterfield 12, 100 and though he noted "disquieting resemblances" to cults, acknowledged that Trungpa's organization is not a cult: "a mere cult leaves you disgusted and disillusioned, wondering how you could have been a fool. I did not feel that charlatans had hoodwinked me into giving up my powers to enhance theirs. On the contrary, mine were unveiled."Butterfield 239
Meditation and education centers
In 1973, Trungpa established Vajradhatu, encompassing all his North American institutions, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. Trungpa also founded more than 100 meditation centers throughout the world. Originally known as Dharmadhatus, these centers, now more than 150 in number, are known as Shambhala Meditation Centers. He also founded retreat centers for intensive meditation practice, including Rocky Mountain Dharma Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, Karmê Chöling in Barnet, Vermont, and Gampo Abbey in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
In 1974, Trungpa founded the Naropa Institute, which later became Naropa University, in Boulder, Colorado. Naropa was the first accredited Buddhist university in North America. Trungpa hired Allen Ginsberg to teach poetry and William Burroughs to teach literature.
Trungpa had a number of notable students, among whom were Pema Chödrön, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Anne Waldman, Diane di Prima, Peter Lieberson, John Steinbeck IV, José Argüelles, David Nichtern, Ken Wilber, David Deida, Francisco Varela, and Joni Mitchell, who portrayed Trungpa in the song "Refuge of the Roads" on her 1976 album Hejira. Ginsberg, Waldman, and di Prima also taught at Naropa University, and in the 1980s Marianne Faithfull taught songwriting workshops. Lesser-known students Trungpa taught in England and the US include Alf Vial, Rigdzin Shikpo (né Michael Hookham), Jigme Rinzen (né P. Howard Useche), Karma Tendzin Dorje (né Mike Crowley), Ezequiel Hernandez Urdaneta (known as Keun-Tshen Goba after setting up his first meditation center in Venezuela), Miguel Otaola (aka Dorje Khandro), Francisco Salas Roche, German financier Burkhard Brauch (aka Chugai Keisho), and Francesca Fremantle. Rigdzin Shikpo promulgated Trungpa's teachings from a primarily Nyingma rather than Kagyü point of view at the Longchen Foundation.Rigdzin Shikpo 2007
Shambhala vision