7 – Crazy Wisdom Movie: No Place to Hide

The documentary movie "Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche", by Johanna Demetrakas, distributed by Kino Lorber.

This movie is streaming free on-line at this url: (4634) Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche | Full Documentary Movie - YouTube

Blog #7. Challenging, inspiring, and breaking students’ hearts.
No place to hide in the Buddhist or Shambhala teachings.

Exertion and discipline were a central theme in the lives of students attempting to follow Chögyam Trungpa’s teachings. One aspect of such discipline was hours of meditation practice, both in everyday life and in meditation retreats, as discussed in the previous blog. At the same time, he implored students to join and serve the world, relate to their families, earn a living, dress well, and appreciate life. Both of these aspirations – to tame oneself and to serve others -- required the willingness and discipline to relate to the tenderness of one’s own heart.

The following excerpt from the Crazy Wisdom movie includes a portion from one of his 1978 Shambhala teachings to a public audience:

--1:15:40 TITLE CARD: Bodhisattva:/A person/who makes/being of benefit/to others/the/guiding principle/of their life.

--1:16:03 Chogyam Trungpa: "How much, that we have actually tried to connect with our own heart?. And how much of that particular attempt to connect with our own heart has been repelled because you might discover something terrible in you?”

--1:16:24 Kimiko Snyder (starting with same visual of VCTR): “He taught me so much, he taught me everything that I know about art and he showed it to me by being genuinely, fully who he was, he was human, completely human, and he didn’t hide it, he didn’t hide his tears, he didn’t hide his wounds.”

1:16:48 Chogyam Trungpa:  “When we want, really, to connect with our own heart. What are you? Who are you? Where is your heart? If you just put your hand through your ribcage and feel your heart, there is a tenderness. It feels sore and soft and it hurts and you want to spill your heart to relate with others. That types of tenderness does bring a notion of fearlessness. Fearlessness that you have possibilities that the world around you can tickle your heart, your raw heart.” end 1:17:40

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From the early 1970s, bringing together awareness practice with everyday life activities, not separating so-called “sacredness” from the so-called “mundane” aspects of life, was a main theme of Chögyam Trungpa’s teachings. From those early years, work and livelihood, sex and relationships, were considered to be the main venues for practicing the spiritual path, not areas of life to avoid. This pervasive teaching was highlighted in several early 1970s seminars entitled Work, Sex, and Money (available in book form from Shambhala Publications. Recommended!).

More and more as the years went on, he encouraged his students to be bodhisattvas – actual practicing bodhisattvas -- based on experiencing the tenderness of the human heart, awareness of others' suffering, and the fearlessness to engage the world from this perspective. As trust between teacher and students grew, such aspirations became reinforced with a variety of actual practices and vows. The very continuity of such disciplines – the sense that there were no breaks to awareness practice -- could be both intimidating and heartbreaking. It could not be accomplished by just pushing oneself, but required love, appreciation, and humor. Especially, some sense of humor about one’s own frailties and egotistical tendencies was necessary.

There are few things as irritating and (potentially) inspiring that to have someone you love -- someone whom you respect and who inspires you -- see you as a capable human being, capable of overcoming your personal limitations in order to be a force in the world. Students felt -- sometimes simultaneously -- deeply loved, exposed, insulted, empowered, and challenged. Even great fellow teachers and colleagues who deeply respected him, such as Ato Rinpoche, could be challenged thinking of this, with a smile. Students, appreciating both the challenge and the heartbreak of living this way, could be brought to smiling and tears at the same time:

around 1:17: Ato, Rinpoche: “They say you must go to see him. I don’t dare it. I always run away. I can’t bear it go to see – he says go to do something, I terrified.”

1:17:52 Adana Barbieri:  “He lived his life, he was like, the greatest bodhisattva. [A] bodhisattva vows to give up anything that has to do with themselves and help other people, and that’s all he was ever doing. See, you’re going to make me cry [laughs and cries]. That’s all he was doing.” 

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In training his students, Chögyam Trungpa repeatedly undermined students’ selfish tendencies to use their relationship to him, their relationship to his Buddhist or Shambhala teachings, or to each other, as a credential. He undermined students’ attempts, which were frequent, to nest in any kind of selfish comfort or neurotic escapism, turning away from their own basic goodness and the basic goodness of the world. This can be seen as a natural continuation of his teachings on overcoming spiritual, psychological, and physical materialism. In a 1979 talk on the Shambhala teachings to senior students, he addressed students’ hesitation about being of service to the world, based on a lack of honesty and gentleness in relating to themselves and others:

CTR: "When you follow your habitual tendencies, you borrow a lot of cronies to join you and cheer you up. You begin to collect your in-groupies, and you begin to collect your own little problems."

The cocoon of nesting in familiar relationships and neurotic habitual patterns was to be overcome through a combination of a good deal of meditation discipline, kindness to oneself as the basis for being decent and generous to others, and the bravery to extend oneself to others. These were ongoing themes in both his Buddhist and Shambhala teachings from the mid-1970s on. In the Shambhala context, this was spoken of as the path of “Great Eastern Sun,” the way of discipline based on awareness, caring for others, and relating to the world with daring and gentleness. From a 1978 talk on the Shambhala teachings to senior students, all of whom, with a few exceptions, were also his advanced Buddhist students:

CTR: "You need daringness because you have to learn to give up perverted, comfort-seeking schemes. But on the other hand, you can’t be too harsh on yourself; therefore some kind of gentleness is necessary. Developing gentleness as well as daringness also makes you see the way of discipline. We could quite safely say here, ladies and gentlemen, that our resistance to the Great Eastern Sun vision ... comes from our wanting so much to go back to our cocoons and be little worms, rather than being grown-up warriors. We could very safely simplify the whole thing into that nutshell. If you are insulted, my apologies; but I’m afraid that’s the truth."

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The Shambhala teachings, excerpted above, are one of three teaching streams, broadly taught from 1978 on, where Chögyam Trungpa challenged his students not only to tame themselves, but to train in serving others with elegance, dignity, and consideration. One could grow up further and be of use, to “create enlightened society,” to actually rule one’s world, to be a king or queen relating to all the details of one’s life.

Another major emphasis of his teachings during that time in the Buddhist context was training in the formal compassion practice of exchanging oneself for others (tonglen) and related Buddhist mahayana contemplative practices.

As well, the first presentation of Vajrayana sadhana practice to advanced Buddhist students also began in 1978, a magical and powerful stream of teachings, the implication of which was more 24/7 practice, again dissolving the barrier between meditation practice and everyday life.

If one adds to this the dharma art teachings and the myriad of other disciplines bringing together everyday life with awareness that became more and more prevalent in the mid to late 1970s, and into the 1980s, one could say that there were fewer and fewer places to hide or “flop.” Students were no longer able to find ways to comfortably retreat into their solitary meditation practice, nor to leave awareness practice out of their life-activities.