Who is Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche?

Adapted slightly from the Shambhala Publications Website: https://www.shambhala.com/learn-more/chogyam-trungpa/biography/

Once young tulkus are recognized, they enter a period of in­tensive training in the theory and practice of the Buddhist teach­ings. Trungpa Rinpoche, after being enthroned as supreme abbot of Surmang Dudtsi-tel Monastery and governor of Surmang District, began a pe­riod of training that would last eighteen years, until his departure from Tibet in 1959. As a Kagyü tulku, his training was based on the systematic practice of meditation and on refined theoretical understanding of Buddhist philosophy. One of the four great lin­eages of Tibet, the Kagyü is known as the practice lineage.

At the age of eight, Trungpa Rinpoche received ordination as a novice monk. Following this, he engaged in intensive study and practice of the traditional monastic disciplines, including traditional Tibetan poetry and monastic dance. His primary teachers were Jamgön Kongtrül of Sechen and Khenpo Gangshar—leading teachers in the Nyingma and Kagyü lineages. In 1958, at the age of eighteen, Trungpa Rinpoche completed his studies, receiving the degrees of kyorpön (doctor of divinity) and khenpo (master of studies). He also received full monastic ordina­tion.

The late 1950s were a time of great upheaval in Tibet. As it became clear that the Chinese communists intended to take over the country by force, many people, both monastic and lay, fled the country. Trungpa Rinpoche spent many harrowing months trek­king over the Himalayas (described in his book Born in Tibet). After narrowly escaping capture by the Chinese, he at last reached India in 1959. While in India, Trungpa Rinpoche was appointed to serve as spiritual adviser to the Young Lamas Home School in Delhi, India. He served in this capacity from 1959 to 1963.

Trungpa Rinpoche’s opportunity to emigrate to the West came when he received a Spaulding sponsorship to attend Oxford University. At Oxford he studied comparative religion, philoso­phy, history, and fine arts. He also studied Japanese flower arranging, re­ceiving a degree from the Sogetsu School. While in England, Trungpa Rinpoche began to instruct Western students in the dharma, and in 1967 he founded the Samye Ling Meditation Center in Dumfrieshire, Scotland. During this period, he also published his first two books, both in English: Born in Tibet (1966) and Meditation in Action (1969).

In 1968 Trungpa Rinpoche traveled to Bhutan, where he entered into a solitary meditation retreat. While on retreat, Rinpoche received a terma text that would influence all of his teaching in the West, The Sadhana of Mahamudra*. The text documents the spiritual degeneration of modern times and provides its antidote, genuine spirituality that leads to the experience of naked and luminous mind. This retreat marked a pivotal change in his approach to teaching. Soon after returning to England, he became a layperson, putting aside his monastic robes and dressing in ordinary Western attire. In 1970 he married a young Englishwoman, Diana Pybus, and together they moved to North America. Many of his early students and his Tibetan colleagues found these changes shocking and upsetting. However, he expressed a convic­tion that in order for the dharma to take root in the West, it needed to be taught free from cultural trappings and religious fascination.

During the seventies, America was in a period of political and cultural ferment. It was a time of fascination with the East. Almost from the moment he arrived in America, Trungpa Rinpoche drew many students to him who were seriously interested in the Buddhist teachings and the practice of meditation. However, he severely criticized the materialistic approach to spirituality that was also quite prevalent, describing it as a “spiritual supermarket.” In his lectures, and in his books Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (1973) and The Myth of Freedom (1976), he pointed to the simplicity and directness of the practice of sitting meditation as the way to cut through such distortions of the spiritual journey.

During his seventeen years of teaching in North America, Trungpa Rinpoche developed a reputation as a dynamic and con­troversial teacher. He was a pioneer, one of the first Tibetan Buddhist teachers in North America, preceding by some years and indeed facilitating the later visits of His Holiness the Karmapa, His Holiness Khyentse Rinpoche, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and many others. In the United States, he found a spiritual kinship with many Zen masters, who were already presenting Buddhist meditation. In the very early days, he particularly connected with Suzuki Roshi, the founder of San Francisco Zen Center. In later years he was close with Kobun Chino Roshi and Jakusho Kwong Roshi in Northern California; with Maezumi Roshi, the founder of the Los Angeles Zen Center; and with Eido Roshi, abbot of the New York Zendo Shobo-ji .

Fluent in the English language, Chögyam Trungpa was one of the first Tibetan Buddhist teachers who could speak to Western students directly, with­out the aid of a translator. Traveling extensively throughout North America and Europe, he gave thousands of talks and hundreds of seminars. He established major centers in Vermont, Colorado, and Nova Scotia, as well as many smaller meditation and study centers in cities throughout North America and Europe. Vajra­dhatu was formed in 1973 as the central administrative body of this network.

The Vajradhatu Seminary was founded in 1973 by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche as a program of advanced training in Buddhist study and meditation practice. These annual three-month meditation and study retreats were led by Chögyam Trungpa every summer from 1973 to 1986. Based on the remarkable material presented in these seminaries, three volumes have been compiled, The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma, edited by senior student Judy Lief. These 3 books represent a complete map of the Tibetan Buddhist path from beginning to end, as taught by the Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. They present Trungpa Rinpoche's teaching on the hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana in a way that joins the traditional concepts with contemplative understanding.

In 1974 Trungpa Rinpoche founded the Naropa Institute (now Naropa University), which became the first and only accredited Buddhist‑inspired university in North America. He lectured extensively at the institute, and his book Journey without Goal (1981) is based on a course he taught there.

In addition to his extensive teachings in the Buddhist tradi­tion, Trungpa Rinpoche also placed great emphasis on the Shambhala teachings, which stress the importance of meditation in action, synchronizing mind and body, and training oneself to approach obstacles or challenges in everyday life with the courageous attitude of a warrior, without anger. In 1976 he established the Shambhala Training program, a series of seminars that present a nonsectarian path of spiritual warriorship grounded in the practice of sitting meditation. His book Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior (1984) gives an overview of the Shambhala teachings. The goal of creating an enlightened society is fundamental to the Shambhala teachings. According to the Shambhala approach, the realization of an enlightened society comes not purely through outer activity, such as community or political involvement, but from appreciation of the senses and the sacred dimension of day-to-day life. A second volume of these teachings, entitled Great Eastern Sun, was published in 1999.

Trungpa Rinpoche was also active in the field of translation. Working with Francesca Fremantle, he rendered a new translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which was published in 1975. Later he formed the Nālandā Translation Committee in order to trans­late texts and liturgies for his own students as well as to make important texts available publicly.

Trungpa Rinpoche was also known for his interest in the arts and particularly for his insights into the relationship between con­templative discipline and the artistic process. Two books published since his death—The Art of Calligraphy (1994) and Dharma Art (1996)—present this aspect of his work. His own artwork included calligraphy, painting, flower arranging, poetry, playwriting, and environmental installations. In addition, he created an educational atmosphere that attracted many leading artists and poets to the Naropa Institute. The exploration of the creative process in light of contemplative training continues there as a provocative dialogue. Trungpa Rinpoche also published two books of poetry: Mudra (1972) and First Thought Best Thought (1983). In 1998 a retrospective compilation of his poetry, Timely Rain, was published.

Trungpa Rinpoche’s published books represent only a fraction of the rich legacy of his teachings. During his seventeen years of teaching in North America, he crafted the structures necessary to provide his students with thorough, systematic training in the dharma. From introductory talks and courses to advanced group retreat practices, these programs emphasized a balance of study and practice, of intellect and intuition. Trungpa by Fabrice Midal, a French biography (available in English translation under the title Chögyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision), details the many forms of training that he developed.

Chögyam Trungpa died in 1987, at the age of forty-seven. By the time of his death, he was known not only as Rinpoche (“Precious Jewel”) but also as Vajracharya (“Vajra Holder”) and as Vidyadhara (“Wisdom Holder”) for his role as a master of the vajrayana, or tantric teachings of Buddhism. As a holder of the Shambhala teachings, he had also received the titles of Dorje Dradül (“Indestructible Warrior”) and Sakyong (“Earth Protector”). He is survived by his wife, Diana Judith Mukpo, and five sons. Senior students of Trungpa Rinpoche continue to be involved in both teaching and meditation instruc­tion in the programs he developed.

Trungpa Rinpoche is widely acknowledged as a pivotal figure in introducing the buddhadharma to the Western world. He joined his great appreciation for Western culture with his deep understanding of his own tradition. This led to a revolutionary approach to teaching the dharma, in which the most an­cient and profound teachings were presented in a thoroughly contemporary way. Trungpa Rinpoche was known for his fearless proclamation of the dharma: free from hesitation, true to the purity of the tradition, and utterly fresh. May these teachings take root and flourish for the benefit of all sentient beings.

* In Tibet, there is a well-documented tradition of teachers discovering, or “receiving,” texts that are believed to have been buried, some of them in the realm of space, by Padmasambhava, who is regarded as the father of Buddhism in Tibet. Teachers who find what Padmasambhava left hidden for the beings of future ages, which may be objects or physical texts hidden in rocks, lakes, and other locations, are referred to as tertöns, and the materials they find are known as terma. Chögyam Trungpa was already known as a tertön in Tibet.

Adapted slightly from the Shambhala Publications Website: https://www.shambhala.com/learn-more/chogyam-trungpa/biography/

Chogyam Trungpa: A Readers Guide, from Shambhala Publications