Chogyam Trungpa Judith L Lief Popular Books

Chogyam Trungpa Judith L Lief Biography & Facts

Chögyam Trungpa (Wylie: Chos rgyam Drung pa; March 5, 1939 – April 4, 1987) was formally named the 11th Zurmang Trungpa, Chokyi Gyatso. 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 scholars as a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. He was a major figure in the dissemination of Buddhism in the West, founding Vajradhatu and Naropa University and establishing the Shambhala Training method. As the 11th of the Trungpa tülkus, he was a tertön, supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and originator of a radical re-presentation of Tibetan Buddhist teachings and the tradition of Shambhala, as an enlightened society that was later called Shambhala Buddhism. Among his 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 coined the term crazy wisdom. Some of his teaching methods and actions, particularly his heavy drinking, sexual promiscuity, and the physical assault 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 (Tibetan: ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: Chos-kyi Rgya-mtsho), which means "Ocean of Dharma". Trungpa (Tibetan: དྲུང་པ་, Wylie: Drung-pa) 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. Masked in his account in Born in Tibet to protect those left behind, 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). After spending the winter in hiding, he decided definitively to escape after learning that his monastery had been destroyed. Trungpa started with Akong Rinpoche and a small party of 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. 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, then, eating their leather belts and bags to survive, they climbed 19,000 feet over the Himalayas before reaching the safety of Pema Ko. After reaching India, on January 24, 1960, the party was flown to a refugee camp. 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 U.S. confirmed details of the journey and supplied their personal accounts. More recent analysis has shown the journey to be directly comparable to such sagas as Shackleton's 1914/17 Antarctic expedition. 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. 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 Fourteenth Dalai Lama, they were appointed its spiritual director and administrator respectively. In 1963, with the assistance of Bedi and other sympathetic westerners, Trungpa received a Spalding Trust fellowship 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 the common room with Trungpa. In 1966, after the departure of the western Theravadan 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. Actor and musician David Bowie 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. 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 U.S. at the invitation of several students, and traveled mostly to Vermont, California, and Colorado, where he was gaining renown for his abilit.... Discover the Chogyam Trungpa Judith L Lief popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Chogyam Trungpa Judith L Lief books.