Keeping Alive the Teachings
August 10, 2008 by Bill Karelis 
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The living treasure trove of teachings, practices, forms, symbols, individual and group instructions and methods, which the great Vidyadhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche left to the world, are held by his direct students–to preserve, protect, and propagate. Such treasure belongs not to us, but to humankind.
Read the full article, and return here to comment on it.
What sticks in my mind from this article is the phrase “Surely the karma of encountering the genuine article is profound.”
We can punt back to CTR to provide the genuine article, but also it’s up to us, as his living terma and as members of of the lineage of awake, to do so.
The other thing is Bill’s reminder of the confidence CTR had in his students. In a way that may be scary, and intimidating re something to live up to, but is there a choice?
Here’s to the genuine article!
Bill,
Thank you for saying what needs to be said. I very much appreciate your articulation of two points in particular.
1. You wrote: “Since Chakrasamvara practice as handed down to us has led to enlightenment of many adepts from the time of Tilopa (and before) to the present, somehow making it easier to finish the recitation practice seems inadvisable.”
I would like to amplify this comment because I have noticed that various practices the Vidyadhara entrusted to us have been made easier over the years. This is very upsetting. The Vajrayana path is not supposed to be easy. If a practitioner is looking for an easy path, or if they have more important things to do with their time, there are many other paths that can accommodate them.
“Chakrasamvara” and “easy” don’t go in the same sentence.
Some important elements of this practice have now been changed–specifically, types of retreat and ways to count the practice–in the interests of making it easier. We have been entrusted with something very precious. It is ill-advised to tamper with these instructions.
2. You mentioned that “there is a new emphasis on a form of shamatha practice which does not link easily to non-conceptual vipashyana as the Vidyadhara taught it.” I’m not sure I know exactly what you’re referring to, but this strikes a chord with me because the basic meditation practice has also been modified and this concerns me. I know, for example, that there are contemplations that are recommended as a form of practice. There is nothing wrong with this, but it’s very important not to blur the line between contemplation and meditation. The way the Vidyadhara taught, shamatha meditation helps us to free ourselves from the trap of discursiveness, while starving our self-centered tendencies. Rigor needs to be applied to this practice to keep it pure. The basic technique doesn’t need to be changed, and nothing else needs to be added!
May the transmissions and the teachings of the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche continue to illuminate this world and all beings.
I very much appreciate this new vehicle (RFS) for its free discourse, and have relished the wise and pithy articles and comments. (as well as the delightful format, photos, You Tube links etc)
I only want to say in regard to Bill’s beautiful, expansive, and well studied essay: “Thank you for that… and yes, it is very important for us as Older Students to continue and illuminate the Vidyadhara’s legacy in any way we can, while acting in a peaceful way in the mandala as a whole…
BUT PLEASE DON’T GIVE UP YET ON THE SURMANG DUTSITIL MONASTERY!!! As bad as world politics have been this summer, there are many people in and around Surmang who will greatly benefit from the shedra that we are building there. (against many obstacles, INCLUDING a huge drop in donations over the summer.)
Not only will it keep the Surmang tradition alive, but it will be a much needed source of education for people there. We still feel confident that we WILL build this shedra. It is still under construction now, under the long distant supervision of Khenpo Tsering. He plans to return to Surmang next summer, under better conditions.
The building of the shedra has already brought much hope and anticipation to people there, as well as the enormous potential for magnetizing knowledge and lungta for that area.
This is part of Chogyam Trungpa’s legacy too… and when he was there, because he felt it was so important, he worked to build a shedra at Surmang himself.
Thank you, Bill, for your courage and your prajna to say what absolutely needs to be said. A great deal of the Vidyadhara’s transmission and legacy, in its living form, is already being lost. Thank you for cataloging the changes in the SI curriculum that are not perpetuating the Vidyadhara’s transmission and instructions. These changes need to be pointed out, and you have done so clearly and even-handedly.
These are your statements that resonated most strongly for me:
“In sum, our beautiful, comprehensive Vajrayana path from the Vidyadhara is being [allowed to] slowly slip away by the organization he founded to perpetuate it.”
“The main point is that we, the senior students, to a very great extent, much greater perhaps than we would like to believe, hold the Vidyadhara’s transmissions. To preserve those transmissions in living form, we must be unafraid to manifest ourselves. What has all our training been for, if not to do this? Now is the time to make our warriorship available to the world.”
I feel this, too. “Warriorship” is needed in the sense of fearlessness, courage, intelligence and gentleness, but also the sharp, cutting quality of AWAKE that was inseparable from the Vidyadhara’s manifestation of compassion. His warning not to indulge in “idiot compassion,” which allows wrong-doing to perpetuate itself, remains one of his unique and unforgettable teachings, for me at least. This too requires warriorship. May all his heart sons and daughters remember his indelible influence on their beings and manifest it with the joyful confidence that devotion to the Vidyadhara brings.
Thank you, Bill, for this thought-provoking and non-thought provoking writing. I am contemplating the point about the importance of not changing the forms as we were taught, along with the notion of impermanence and change. The motivation for changes is the crux for me.
I wanted to comment and thank two live Negton school teachers, Donna Williams, and Ken Ketchum, who taught the Mahamudra and Dzogchen part of my Ngeton School , as well as the late, feisty, outrageous Robin. I can’t imagine Ngeton school without the live, interaction and the particular container that is created by people who did Ngeton school together in a group.
If it hadn’t been for Ken Ketchum, who introduced Tsoknyi Rinpoche teachings and Tulku Urgyen’s Teachings as well as others, in the Maha Ati /Dzogchen part of the curriculum then the path would not have unfolded as it did.
There is no way to replace the spontaneity and interaction of the original Ngeton school groups, where teachers , who taught us, had matured within the older forms, and from their own practice experiences, knew how to access and communicate the best teachings of the best teachers, and made it available to us in the study matter. Now, with a programmatic, online curriculum which , I imagine, will adhere to a very “orthodox” Shambhala-approved list of what to study and whom to study, , the experience of ngeton school may cast a wider net, but become a much narrower path.
This impassioned piece provides the kind of thorough clarification I’ve been hoping to hear for many months. Though my formal practice discipline has often faltered, I still look to the Vidyadhara as my main dharma guide and inspiration, greatly supported by books and articles in this vein. But I also feel immense admiration for the son he so carefully cultivated. It would be genuinely helpful in several ways if SMR came forward and addressed each point Bill has noted in an open discussion or letter. Call them discursive if you will, but muted “containment” of these issues doesn’t seem likely to clear the air.
Thanks Bill for saying what MUST be said. The Vidyadhara’s teachings need to be saved, and not just as pages in books. My concern is that in order to ensure survival of the organization that functioned as the container for the teachings, compromises are being made, and the Vidyadhara’s teachings are slowly being pushed aside.
I wasn’t a good student, and piss-poor at being a member of the organization (bailed after the Regent debacle…) and have continued my study with other teachers. Trungpa Rinpoche’s picture is on my shrine, though, and in my heart when I do guru yoga each day.
He was a mahasiddha and terton, and it would be terrible if his teachings suffered the death of a thousand cuts. Robin Kornman and I talked about this often during the last part of Robin’s life – Robin really feared that the organization was drifting away from it’s core practices.
Keep up the good work!
This is quite astute. I’d like to add something: we should petition the Sakyong to acknowledge the existence of the group of people who share this insight and want to preserve the Vidyadhara’s wisdom and compassion, just as he transmitted it. It could be the dharmic equivalent of a “seniors tour,” and SMR needn’t see it as competitive to the dharma he is presenting.
We could have our own teachers, such as Bill, or anyone else who has the knowledge to teach the dharma arising from the mindstream of Chogyam Trungpa. We could have our own practice materials, the ones we were transmitted.
Why do I say this? am I crazy? I think we should reach out and give no one the opportunity to say that what we are doing is splittism (to paraphrase the China Daily) and we can work within the system. If not, if we are not given a fair hearing, or are put on hold, then we can explore other possibilities.
But first we should give SMR the chance to do the right thing.
Lee
Lee, I think you’re right – ‘we’ should give SMR the opportunity to acknowledge the disaffected, left-out students of the Vidyadhara that do not follow SMR’s teaching stream and who are pointing out the divergence of that stream from the one his father taught. That would be a first step.
From what I have heard, since I am now quite outside SMR’s fairy-tale kingdom, he does not tolerate those who do not agree with and support him. But he should be given the chance to show that he can tolerate and even acknowledge that students of his father, from whom he inherited the kingdom, are carrying on the Vidyadhara’s teachings as they received them, and that they have something valuable (priceless?) to offer.
Yes, give him the chance to do the right thing. But perhaps ‘we’ should also think about what to do if he doesn’t. It seems we need more time to gather ourselves. I’m sure there are more of us than have shown up here so far.
Waves of Transmission
I’m always very inspired when I read communications about Chogyam Trungpa from one of his students. The notion of carrying his lineage is a very powerful and personal one. It was our
karmic fortune and burden to be his students.
Bill has always been an excellent example of something very good.
In Shambhala Training, in the old days, if one prepared properly to be a Director according to the texts, magic happened. It was exactly as if being in the presence of Rinpoche. The environment
became as if he was there. I felt this way when I taught, as well as when I assisted many other teachers…Frank Berliner, Jeremy, Sue Dexter, just to name a few….all enabled the mind
of the Druk Sakyong. This was the magic, power, and gift of this terma. This is a powerful
vehicle of transmission that, to my mind, is quickly being lost. It was not the result of us
being particularly good or accomplished students. It was somehow the result of the chemistry
and karma of our relationship with this great Terton. Honestly., who could have thunk it?
So, yes, to wax poetic, I and others are yearning to transmit and relate and communicate. This
venue here is an important iteration of chaos. As I said a couple of nights ago, anarchy and joy.
Thank you, Bill and all of you– these posts have moved, saddened, and inspired me. I have only recently joined the Shambhala sangha (2004), but with great zeal, and have found VCTR’s teachings to be incisive, expansive and powerful; golden and earth-shaking.
For a few years I, too, have bemoaned the fate of the Vidyadhara’s teachings: I too fear their loss, I too am dismayed by their neglect in the Shambhala Buddhist curriculum.
While I feel a deep devotion to Trungpa Rinpoche and the Shambhala Teachings, I do not connect with the present Sakyong, and without that connection, I cannot see how to progress in the curriculum beyond Warrior Assembly and Sutrayana Seminary. As SMR’s new vision of path is further elaborated, I fear the teachings and practices I hold so dear will simply evaporate, and that the students who learned them ‘from the horse’s mouth’ will also pass away, before the next generation has time to receive, practice, and realize them.
While I can benefit from the Vidyadhara’s mind and teachings by participating in the Shambhala world, reading his many books, practicing in the Stupa, and hearing stories, I will not have the opportunity to learn from him directly, in the nirmanakaya sense.
Thus I have longed for an opportunity to connect with senior students, who hold those transmissions and carry forward that understanding.
All this to say, there are potential young students out there (both in and outside of SI) who would be extremely grateful for the opportunity to learn from you– each of you who has something to transmit, to explain, to instruct. I have had the chance to learn from a few ‘old dogs’, and it is been precious indeed. Please, please don’t hesitate– show us your confidence and broken hearts, wisdom and understanding, so that we may learn to do likewise. ‘May we instruct and teach fortunate students, and may this spread throughout the entire expanse of Jambudvipa, completely fulfilling the wishes of this lord.’
(I’m presently working as a coordinator at SMC; please don’t hesitate to contact me. I quite earnestly want to foster ongoing exchange and instruction on the Vidyadhara’s work.)
Thank you, Alex. What you say is very touching and inspiring. It is delightful to hear from people like you who are not confused and know what they want and need. Being at SMC is fortunate, for the land itself carries many blessings and is itself a teacher, but it’s also in close enough proximity to Boulder that it should be easy to find good teachers who carry the Vidyadhara’s heart-mind transmissions.
Good luck and many blessings,
Suzanne
Yes – to tell you the truth – I just dont connect with the Sakyong either-things seem to have just become very flat – the whole thing is kind of inward -looking re the creation of a court and not empowering others to give transmission like the Regent.
How long do people have to study and practice in this sangha before they are given permission to give transmission – Ray has been a student of the Vidyadharas for over thirty years – surely Westerners have some realisation about the dharma now!?
I also had a thought yesterday that Patrick Sweeney could empower many dharma heirs and according to the rapprochment with Satdharma they would get access to the Vidyadharas teachings pre people in the SI sangha. But they should have access as Patrick is a lineage holder – I wonder why he is not empowering others to go out and teach re having his own acharyas.
Yes CTR said the Sakyong is and was a lineage holder – but is that it?! – what about the twenty year olds in the dharma now – will they have to wait another forty years before they can take their seats. How will CTRs teachings grow with just the Sakyong at the head-if CTR is the equivalent of Padmasambhava – Padmasambhava had many students who spread the dharma in Tibet and India.
Any ideas on how the whole thing is going to pan out………….would like to hear some feedback on this issue as I myself am contemplating my next move re being in Shambhala
Part of the agreement (which now seems to be moot) with Patrick was that he himself would not have an heir.
thats interesting – I did not know that before and I have been reading the Satdharma website – where did you get that information from and how was that decision arrived at……………?!
Re listening to Gesar on the Chronicle project he reflects that no-one completely had a ‘handle’ on CTR —his discussion was very open, fluid -going back to basics you could almost say. I found his talk quite refreshing………
Re also some talk on this website tho not actually splitting from SI but having more connection to CTR within SI itself – do people think that is possible or not? Querying that myself at the moment…….thing is for myself I am not really inspired by Sakyong as by CTR ….believe I connected with CTR because he had the power to transgress societies rules when that was required witness the ‘poetry wars’ when he punched someone.
I have not seen that decisiveness in the actions of the Sakyong…………where is the challenge nowadays…….is the organisation becoming too conservative………..too establishement-wise. Plus I dont think we are engaging with the intellectuals within our society that also transgress the rules…………..
…….witness Reverend Wrights talk on youtube at the Washington Press Club re his connection with Obama…………I think he is great social reformer and very religious but SI is not engaging with him and others like CTR did with Ram Dass, R D Laing, Peter Brook, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and countless others in western society……….CTR was like a sponge – as Gesar said he really did investigate western society.
Myself became buddhist because of literature aka kerouac and the like and some experiences I had in meditation but I also tried to see my religious experience from a western perspective re the writings of Sartre and Camus (tho I have not read them much recently!) Sort of bad faith to reject what you have ‘experienced’ and not investigate it with an eye of logic somewhat.
How do you see the Sakyong attracting such disaffected people as I once was in this cynical society of ours-I dunno if the present set-up is sophisticated enough to challenge people as CTR did……….
……….I think people are just holding their breath about the
Sakyong -thats a feeling I get……………are there many older students who are contemplating what Ray did……….I just dont know……….does it really matter? Can you chug along with Sakyong and just reform as you go along or is a revolution or many revolutions called for………would love to hear peoples opinions——–as I am investigating all the ‘schismatics’ now as well as SI.
…….sort of better confronting people in writing than I am in speech……..I am quite friendly really………….I think Jan Watson (say hello to her from me) and Pema are ok with me (met pema before she was megaguru of the airwaves ……..she acted as umdze on a dathun that I was on at G.Abbey which is definately a place that all the money in the world should go to!? Yo Pema!
hope for some more contributors to your site -this is becoming too much like a one-way conversation.
well best
rita ashworth
uk
Hi Rita,
I remember you. Do you remember me, perhaps as Suzanne Head? I share your interests and concerns, including the social change dimension. I also was attracted to CTR because of his fearlessness in challenging rules and taboos. I’d love to have a conversation with you. I’m in Amsterdam. If you have Skype, we could have a Skype conversation. We’re only an hour apart, time zone wise. Email me at sduarte@xs4all.nl.
Suzanne
just brief message to Suzanne Duarte re above message – I am on a libray computer -skint at the moment! You can email me at ashworth@easy.com.
At present reading Ray’s book and have ordered his tapes, but am also interested in Midal, and people in the UK like Hookham, dont know which people in the states, Canada are re-examining their connection to SI…………or even people trying to ‘reform or revolutionise SI from within’ …………hung up on National Assembly idea myself…..trungpa definately wanted voting in that and that is not happening in Congress——-if there was more discussion, truly open discussion may be could re-evaluate my ideas
I have always thought that an interesting statistic would be the ratio of students of Shambhala, now and then, who were independently wealthy to those who had to work.
I want to make sure that people on the fringe have heard about The Veneraqble Thrangu Rinpoche’s teachings in Boulder October 9-11 at the Boulder Shambhala Center.
The text that Thrangu Rinpoche will teach from in Boulder is a vajra SONG OF REALIZATION called, “The View of Mahamudra,” written by the Vidydhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche when he was 19 years old.
Trungpa Rinpoche wrote this song of realization immediately after he, Thrangu Rinpoche, and Khenpo Kartar Rinpoche had received Khenpo Gangshar’s complete set of terma teachings from Khenpo Gangshar himself. Khenpo Gangshar knew these three would soon have to leave Tibet, and he probably knew that he would not be leaving. So he transmitted the full set of his own terma to Trungpa Rinpoche, Thrangu Rinpoche, and Khenpo Kartar Rinpoche.
Right after receiving these teachings, Trungpa Rinpoche wrote this amazing text, ‘The View of Mahamudra’. It’s very significant that we will be receiving this teaching of Trungpa Rinpoche from his old friend and vajra brother, Thrangu Rinpoche, both of whom were disciples of Khenpo Gangshar. It’s the view, fresh from Khenpo Gangshar, as realized by the young Trungpa just as they were about to leave their homeland of Tibet.
This program is a fundraiser for Vajra Vidya Retreat Center in Crestone Colorado, and is co-hosted by Namo Buddha Foundation and the Boulder Shambhala Center.
PLEASE REGISTER ONLINE AT: http://rinpoche.eventbrite.com/
i find this discussion very interesting. as a new “student” of the shambhala vision and a senior citizen, i just wanted to tell you all that the Spirit of Vidyadhara’s teaching are alive and well. many of these tenants i have felt personally for a long time and it’s fantastic to hear them in dialog. just recently i have immersed in CTR’s Dharma and books. as his original students you have obviously helped propagate this lineage.
i have found it confusing in regards to SI and the Crazy Wisdom i have been studying. this discussion has helped tremendously. as Dharma Heirs you should know that this spirit is alive and well. i personally am very grateful for your contributions~~~
Well, it’s a couple years after this article, so things have moved on that much farther. But a few points:
–The primary introduction to shamatha comes through the first five levels of Shambhala Training. That’s the entrance gate, and a necessity to be a vajrayana practitioner in Shambhala, hence all students get exposed to five techniques, including the level five formless practice.
–The Way of Shambhala institutionalizes the three yanas as part of the entrance gate.
–Trungpa Rinpoche himself would not necessarily have seen his own guidelines as set in stone and would alter them himself. That’s up to the lineage holder.
–Could everything have been maintained perfectly even if Trungpa R were alive today? I wonder.
–It’s clear now that the entrance yidams will be Shambhalian–and it will be a very thorough training in them.
One problem is that we don’t have so many monastics. Monasteries could work full time on the maintenance of teachings, but that’s not the world we’re in. We live in the world of jobs, families, maintaining our practices and dharma centers as best we can. This simply has got to get recognized. The preservation situation is not ideal. I’m not suggesting to give up on it, not at all, but….
But there’s a far bigger issue, which has to do with the world at large. The kind of culture that supported vajrayana Buddhism is fast disappearing. American culture is distinctly in decay, and the world’s prospects as a whole are darkening. This was clearly foreseen by Trungpa R, hence his central desire to establish KOS. He never saw the establishment of vajryana in the west as separable from an environment that would nurture and protect it. The practice requirements for Chakrasamvara may have been weakened, but it continues to be practiced and the Sakyong has continued to give the abhisheka for it and Vajrayogini. The issue, though, is more fundamental. How can an environment that protects these teachings be built? That’s what KOS is for, and there’s nothing more indelibly Trungpa R than those teachings.