CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA WAS A Buddhist teacher who was born in Tibet in 1940 and died in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1987

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.