Chögyam Trungpa

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 (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 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, 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 United States confirmed details of the journey and supplied their personal accounts. 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 14th 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 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 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 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."

Introduction of the Vajrayana

Trungpa was one of the first teachers to introduce Tibetan Buddhism and the Vajrayana to the West. 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.

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". 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", 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."

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.

Shambhala vision

In 1976, Trungpa began giving a series of secular teachings, some of which were gathered and presented as the Shambhala Training, inspired by his vision of the legendary Kingdom of Shambhala. Trungpa actually started writing about Shambhala before his 1959 escape from Tibet to India, but most of those writings were lost during the escape.

In his view not only was individual enlightenment not mythical, but the Shambhala Kingdom, an enlightened society, could in fact be actualized. The practice of Shambhala vision is to use mindfulness/awareness meditation as a way to connect with one's basic goodness and confidence. It is presented as a path that "brings dignity, confidence, and wisdom to every facet of life." Trungpa proposed to lead the Kingdom as sakyong (Tib. "earth protector") with his wife as queen-consort or sakyong wangmo.

Shambhala vision is described as a non-religious approach rooted in meditation and accessible to individuals of any, or no, religion. In Shambhala terms, it is possible, moment by moment, for individuals to establish enlightened society. His book, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, provides a concise collection of the Shambhala views. According to Trungpa, it was his intention to propagate the Kingdom of Shambala that provided the necessary inspiration to leave his homeland and make the arduous journey to India and the West.

Work with arts and sciences

From the beginning of his time in the United States, Trungpa encouraged his students to integrate a contemplative approach into their everyday activities. In addition to making a variety of traditional contemplative practices available to the community, he incorporated his students' already existing interests (especially anything relating to Japanese culture), evolving specialized teachings on a meditative approach to these various disciplines. These included kyūdō (Japanese archery), calligraphy, ikebana (flower arranging), Sadō (Japanese tea ceremony), dance, theater, film, poetry, photography, health care, and psychotherapy. His aim was, in his own words, to bring "art to everyday life." He founded the Nalanda Foundation in 1974 as an umbrella organization for these activities, but changed its name to Naropa Institute.

Death

Trungpa visited Nova Scotia for the first time in 1977. In 1983 he established Gampo Abbey, a Karma Kagyü monastery in Cape Breton. The following year, 1984–85, he observed a yearlong retreat at Mill Village and in 1986 he moved his home and Vajradhatu's international headquarters to Halifax.

By then he was in failing health due to paralysis from the 1969 auto accident, diabetes, high blood pressure, and years of heavy alcohol use. On September 28, 1986, he suffered cardiac arrest, after which his condition deteriorated, requiring intensive care at the hospital, then at his home and finally, in mid-March 1987, back at the hospital, where he died on April 4, 1987.

In 2006 his widow, Diana Mukpo, wrote, "Although he had many of the classic health problems that develop from heavy drinking, it was in fact more likely the diabetes and high blood pressure that led to abnormal blood sugar levels and then the cardiac arrest". Trungpa's doctor Michael Levy concurred in his initial statement, and added that a bacterial infection likely caused his death. In a 2008 interview for the Chronicles of Chogyam Trungpa, Levy changed his statement when asked again "What was he ill with? What did he die of?" He added that Trungpa also "had chronic liver disease related to his alcohol intake over many years." One of Trungpa's nursing attendants reported that he suffered in his last months from classic symptoms of terminal alcoholism and cirrhosis, yet continued drinking heavily. She added, "At the same time there was a power about him and an equanimity to his presence that was phenomenal, that I don't know how to explain."

His body was packed in salt, laid in a wooden box, and conveyed to Karmê Chöling. On 26 May 1987, more than 2,000 students and friends and Tibetan Buddhist masters including Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, the 12th Tai Situ Rinpoche, the 3rd Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, and the 12th Tsurpu Gyeltsab, Drakpa Tenpa Yarpel Rinpoche, attended Trungpa's cremation ceremony before his kudung was interred in a stupa at Shambhala Mountain Center. Attendants at the ceremony at Karmê Chöling witnessed that the ceremony was accompanied by rainbows, circling eagles, and a cloud in the shape of an Ashe as symbolic of enlightenment. "Everyone who stayed long enough at Trungpa's cremation saw the rainbows", Butterfield said.

Continuation of the Shambhala lineage

Upon Trungpa's death, the leadership of Vajradhatu was first carried on by his American disciple, appointed Vajra Regent, and Dharma heir Ösel Tendzin. Among Tendzin's controversial actions was his rejection of the recommendation of senior Kagyu lineage holder the Tai Situpa to take over leadership of Vajradhatu in conjunction with Trungpa's half-brother, Damchu Tenphel, who resided in Tibet. This was "regarded by members as a serious slight to lineage authorities and was construed as the Regent's attempt to secure his position of control".

Also controversial was that Tendzin "took further action to buttress his centrality by denying students permission to seek teachings from other Kagyu Tibetan teachers, claiming that only he possessed the special transmission, materials and knowledge unique to the Trungpa lineage. Students were told that if they wanted to practice within the community, they would have to take spiritual instruction from the Regent."

Other behavior was troubling as well. As one scholar who has studied the community noted, Tendzin was "bisexual and known to be very promiscuous" and "enjoyed seducing straight men" but the community "did not find [this behavior] particularly troublesome". Not all his partners were unwilling; one scholar said "it became a mark of prestige for a man, gay or straight, to have sex with the Regent, just as it had been for a woman to have sex with [Trungpa] Rinpoche", but at least one student reported that Tendzin had raped him. As a former Vajradhatu member attested, "a chilling story had recently been reported by one of ... [the] teachers at the Buddhist private school [for the Vajradhatu community]. This straight, married male was pinned face-down across Rich's desk by the guards [the Dorje Kasung] while Rich forcibly raped him."

In 1989 it was revealed that Ösel Tendzin had contracted HIV and knowingly continued to have unprotected sex with his students, without informing them for nearly three years. Some of these students later died of AIDS. Others close to Tendzin, including Vajradhatu's board of directors, knew for two years that Tendzin was HIV-positive and sexually active but kept silent. As one student reported at the time:

I was very distressed that he and his entourage had lied to us for so long, always saying he did not have AIDS. I was even more distressed over the stories of how the Regent used his position as a dharma teacher to induce "straight" students to have unprotected sex with him, while he claimed he had been tested for AIDS but the result was negative.

Shambhala's leadership then passed on to Trungpa's eldest son and Shambhala heir, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. In 2018, Buddhist Project Sunshine, an organization founded as a survivors' network for former Shambhala Buddhist members, reported multiple allegations of sexual assault within the Shambhala community. In response, and to allow time for the community to investigate these accusations, Sakyong Mipham temporarily stepped aside as leader, and the Shambhala governing council resigned and appointed an interim Board of Directors and a Process Team. In response, Sakyong Mipham issued a letter to the community, saying:

some of these women have shared experiences of feeling harmed as a result of these relationships. I am now making a public apology. In addition, I would like you to know that over the years, I have apologized personally to people who have expressed feeling harmed by my conduct, including some of those who have recently shared their stories. I have also engaged in mediation and healing practices with those who have felt harmed. Thus I have been, and will continue to be, committed to healing these wounds.

After the allegations of sexual misconduct, Naropa Institute removed Sakyong Mipham from its board in 2018. In 2020, The Walrus published an investigative report detailing a culture of abuse dating to Shambhala's earliest days, with all three leaders of the organization, including Chögyam Trungpa, having been credibly accused of sexual misconduct and abuse of power.