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    Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala
    Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala
    Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala
    Ebook342 pages4 hours

    Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala

    By Chögyam Trungpa

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    "In Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior Chögyam Trungpa offers an inspiring and practical guide to enlightened living based on the Shambhala journey of warriorship, a secular path taught internationally through the Shambhala Training program.

    Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala is a continuation of that path. Shambhala was an exploration of human goodness and its potential to create an enlightened society—a state that the author calls "nowness." And in that spirit of nowness, Great Eastern Sun—which is accessible to meditators and nonmeditators alike—centers on the question, "Since we're here, how are we going to live from now on?"
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherShambhala
    Release dateJul 17, 2001
    ISBN9780834821354
    Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala
    Author

    Chögyam Trungpa

    Mestre em meditação, professor e artista – fundou a Universidade Naropa em Boulder, no Colorado, a primeira universidade de inspiração budista da América do Norte; o programa de treino de Shambhala. Foi o 11.º descendente da linha de tulkus Trungpa da escola Kagyü do budismo tibetano. Foi também treinado na tradição Nyingma – a mais antiga das quatro escolas –, e era um adepto do movimento rimay ou «não sectário» dentro do budismo tibetano, que aspirava reunir e disponibilizar todos os valiosos ensinamentos das diferentes escolas, livres de rivalidades sectárias. Trungpa foi uma figura significativa na disseminação do budismo tibetano no Ocidente, fundando a Universidade Naropa e estabelecendo o método de Treino Shambhala, uma apresentação do Buddhadharma amplamente desprovida de armadilhas étnicas.

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      Book preview

      Great Eastern Sun - Chögyam Trungpa

      As a loving and grateful student of Chögyam Trungpa, the Dorje Dradul of Mukpo, I am delighted that these wonderful teachings—which have so profoundly influenced and shaped my life—are now available to benefit others. May countless people have the good fortune to read this book.

      —Pema Chodrön, author of When Things Fall Apart

      With brilliance and good will, Chögyam Trungpa illuminates the dharma of wise society. He invites all of good heart to find a dignity in their human experience that joins together heaven and earth.

      —Jack Kornfield, author of After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

      ABOUT THE BOOK

      In Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior Chögyam Trungpa offers an inspiring and practical guide to enlightened living based on the Shambhala journey of warriorship, a secular path taught internationally through the Shambhala Training program.

      Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala is a continuation of that path. Shambhala was an exploration of human goodness and its potential to create an enlightened society—a state that the author calls nowness. And in that spirit of nowness, Great Eastern Sun—which is accessible to meditators and nonmeditators alike—centers on the question, Since we're here, how are we going to live from now on?

      CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA (1940–1987)—meditation master, teacher, and artist—founded Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, the first Buddhist-inspired university in North America; the Shambhala Training program; and an international association of meditation centers known as Shambhala International. He is the author of numerous books, including Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, and The Myth of Freedom.

      The compiler and editor of The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, CAROLYN ROSE GIMIAN has been editing the works of Chögyam Trungpa for more than twenty-five years. She is the founding director of the Shambhala Archives, the archival repository for Chögyam Trungpa’s work in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

      Sign up to receive inspirational quotes by Chögyam Trungpa and special offers from Shambhala Publications.

      Or visit us online to sign up at shambhala.com/eoceanofdharma.

      Great Eastern Sun

      The Wisdom of Shambhala

      CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA

      Dorje Dradul of Mukpo

      Edited by Carolyn Rose Gimian

      SHAMBHALA • Boston & London • 2010

      SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS, INC.

      Horticultural Hall

      300 Massachusetts Avenue

      Boston, Massachusetts 02115

      www.shambhala.com

      © 1999 by Diana Judith Mukpo

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Trungpa, Chogyam, 1939–

      Great eastern sun/Chögyam Trungpa (Dorje Dradul of Mukpo); ed. by Carolyn Rose Gimian.

      p.   cm.

      eISBN 978-0-8348-2135-4

      ISBN 978-1-57062-293-9

      ISBN 978-1-57062-818-4

      1. Spiritual life—Buddhism. I. Gimian, Carolyn Rose. II. Title.

      BQ4302.T7824   1999      99-32291

      294.3′444—dc21                       CIP

      TO GESAR OF LING

      TO GESAR OF LING

      Armor ornamented with gold designs,

      Great horse adorned with sandalwood saddle:

      These I offer you, great Warrior General—

      Subjugate now the barbarian insurgents.

      Your dignity, O Warrior,

      Is like lightning in rain clouds.

      Your smile, O Warrior,

      Is like the full moon.

      Your unconquerable power

      Is like a tiger springing.

      Surrounded by troops,

      You are a wild yak.

      Becoming your enemy

      Is being caught by a crocodile:

      O Warrior, protect me,

      The ancestral heir.

      Illustrations

      List of Poems

      Foreword

      Preface

      Prologue    The Kingdom, the Cocoon, the Great Eastern Sun

      PART ONE    PROFOUND

      PRIMORDIAL STROKE

      1   A Dot in the Open Sky

      2   Working with Early Morning Depression

      3   Overcoming Physical Materialism

      THE PRIMORDIAL DOT

      4   The Cosmic Sneeze

      5   Discipline in the Four Seasons

      6   Mirrorlike Wisdom

      PART TWO    BRILLIANT

      SACRED EXISTENCE: JOINING HEAVEN AND EARTH

      7   Sacredness: Natural Law and Order

      8   The King of Basic Goodness

      9   How to Cultivate the Great Eastern Sun

      PART THREE    JUST

      THE PASSION TO BE

      10  Blamelessness: How to Love Yourself

      11  Attaining the Higher Realms

      12  The Big No

      FEARLESS RELAXATION

      13  Aloneness and the Seven Virtues of the Higher Realms

      14  The King of the Four Seasons

      PART FOUR    POWERFUL

      THE WARRIOR’S CRY

      15  The Basic Gasp of Goodness

      16  Helping Others

      17  Transmission

      PART FIVE    ALL-VICTORIOUS

      THE WARRIOR’S SMILE

      18  A Question of Heart

      19  The Mukpo Clan

      20  Beyond Depression

      21  The Great Eastern Sun: The Dot in Space

      Epilogue

      Afterword

      Glossary

      Sources

      Author’s Notes

      Resources

      Books by Chögyam Trungpa

      Index

      E-mail Sign-Up

      Illustrations

      Title page, part titles, and cover stamp: The Great Eastern Sun. Design by Chögyam Trungpa. Executed by Gina Stick.

      1. Dedication page: The Scorpion Seal, which is the seal of the Mukpo clan and of the Sakyong of Shambhala. It was previously used as the seal of the king of Dege, a kingdom in eastern Tibet. Design by Chögyam Trungpa.

      2. Tibetan script of To Gesar of Ling provided by the Nalanda Translation Committee.

      3–4. Four photographs of the author executing a calligraphy of lungta, or windhorse. Photographs by Andrea Roth. From the collection of the Shambhala Archives.

      5. The Chinese and Tibetan characters for imperial. The middle character, three horizontal lines joined by one vertical line, is the character for king, described in chapter 8. Calligraphy by Chögyam Trungpa.

      6. Photograph taken during a luncheon at the U.S. Capitol in 1980 in honor of His Holiness the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa (see chapter 8). Senator Charles Percy is being introduced to His Eminence Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche by the Karmapa. Chögyam Trungpa is shown to His Holiness’s left, and the Tibetan translator is standing to His Holiness’s right. The logo of the Karmapa can be seen on the banner behind them. Photograph by U.S. Capitol Police. From the collection of the Shambhala Archives.

      7. The logo of the Karmapa, showing two deer on either side of the wheel of dharma. The Tibetan inscription on the banner reads: The Seat of the Glorious Karmapa. From the collection of the Shambhala Archives.

      8. A statue of a lohan, or a disciple of the Buddha, shown in the posture of meditation. From the collection of the British Museum.

      9. His Holiness the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. Photographer unknown. From the collection of the Shambhala Archives.

      10. The Big No. Calligraphy by Chögyam Trungpa. Reprinted from First Thought Best Thought: 108 Poems, by Chögyam Trungpa.

      11. Tiger. Photograph by Chögyam Trungpa.

      12, 13, 14 & 15. The tiger, lion, garuda, and dragon. Line drawings by Sherap Palden Beru.

      16. Chögyam Trungpa teaching a dharma art program in Boulder, Colorado. Behind him can be seen his personal flag or standard, described in chapter 19. To his right is the Shambhala flag, also described in chapter 19. From top to bottom, the four stripes on the Shambhala flag are orange, white, red, and blue. Photograph by Robert Del Tredici.

      17. Chögyam Trungpa. Photograph by Robert Del Tredici.

      18. Chögyam Trungpa in a field behind the Balmoral Inn in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, 1979. Photograph by James Gimian.

      19. Tibetan script of the closing dedication provided by the Nalanda Translation Committee.

      List of Poems

      1111 Pearl Street: Off Beat

      Good Morning within the Good Morning

      Four Untitled Poems

      How to Know No

      The Meek: Powerfully Nonchalant and Dangerously Self-Satisfying

      Seasoning Life

      Sanity Is Joyful

      Battle Cry

      Auspicious Coincidence: Wealth and Vision

      Excerpt from Haiku

      Anthem

      ON BEHALF OF MY LATE HUSBAND, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and on behalf of the Mukpo family, I am very pleased to contribute a foreword to Great Eastern Sun. Trungpa Rinpoche, whose Shambhala title was Dorje Dradul of Mukpo, was a true example of a Shambhala person. Although he was raised in the strict monastic tradition of Tibet, he was very broad-minded. He was able to appreciate the fundamental sacredness of life and the lives of people from many different traditions. He not only followed the Buddhist path but also explored many different aspects of life, which included an interest in the visual arts, poetry, and so forth. He was able to see beyond his own tradition and to appreciate how the Shambhala principles might affect the lives of human beings with other religious affiliations or no particular religious affiliation at all. This is an example of what a compassionate person he was.

      It would have been very important to my husband to know that these teachings, which he gave to his students during his lifetime, are now being presented in a book that can be available to many, many people. I hope that these principles can be brought onto whatever path people are traveling in their lives. It can help to enrich their lives and give them perspective. Some people may already naturally embody many of these principles. This book will help to give them a format and structure within which to live their lives.

      In the Shambhala teachings, we often talk about the Great Eastern Sun. The sun is always rising, which means that there is always the potential for human beings to discover their own goodness and the sacredness of the world. Therefore, we have entitled this book Great Eastern Sun. I hope that this book will help many people, including those who are already on the path of warriorship, to experience further Great Eastern Sun vision in their lives.

      Trungpa Rinpoche himself lived his life by these principles and was therefore able to enrich the lives of others. I hope that people can take these principles to heart so that they, in turn, may be able to enrich the lives of those with whom they come in contact. You might say this is a bodhisattva approach to the Shambhala tradition. It was certainly my husband’s approach to his entire life.

      Diana Judith Mukpo

      Providence, Rhode Island

      October 17, 1998

      THIS VOLUME IS A SEQUEL and a complement to Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. The first volume was like a guidebook to Shambhala or a road map of the warrior’s path. Great Eastern Sun is about transmission and about embodying and manifesting. In that sense, it is not about then; it is about now. There is a way in which this book attempts to directly convey or transmit wisdom. Although that is a rather difficult thing to do, it is couched within simplicity.

      Great Eastern Sun is divided into a prologue and five parts—Profound, Brilliant, Just, Powerful, and All-Victorious. The five divisions correspond to the five qualities of something called absolute Ashé. The word Ashé is not mentioned in the manuscript, but it will be found in the author’s notes for the talks on which this book is based. (See Author’s Notes.) In the Shambhala teachings, the Ashé principle represents the life force, or the basic energy that underlies and infuses all human life and activity. Readers can pursue further study of the Ashé principle through the Shambhala Training program.¹

      Although this book is structured in a deliberate order, it does not have to be read front to back. The material in the early chapters is more demanding logically; the later material is more atmospheric and sometimes more playful. In some sense, the structure of the book is like a flower with petals unfolding. If you read it from beginning to end, you start at the outer petals and spiral in to an empty center. But you can also start in the middle or anywhere in between.

      The material in the last two parts of the book, Powerful and All-Victorious, is presented as a series of lectures that you, the reader, can attend. These chapters might be regarded as meditations. You may want to read them that way and see whether that approach works for you.

      In presenting the Shambhala teachings to the Western world, Chögyam Trungpa not only charted new territory, but he also adopted a new name: Dorje Dradul of Mukpo. He signed the foreword to Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior with this name. Mukpo is his family name; Dorje Dradul means The Adamantine, or Indestructible, Warrior. In this book, he is often referred to as the Dorje Dradul.²

      New meditators and those who have never practiced meditation will, I think, find this book accessible. I hope that it will also be of interest to more seasoned practitioners. Many readers will be satisfied purely with what they gain from reading the book. Others may find the sitting practice of meditation to be a discipline they would like to pursue. There are many qualified meditation instructors and a number of organizations that offer an introduction to Buddhist and mindfulness meditation practice.³ In the first book, Shambhala, detailed meditation instruction is provided in the chapter entitled Discovering Basic Goodness. In the present volume, a multilayered approach is taken to presenting the details of the sitting practice of meditation. Practice infuses the discussion in many chapters, but no separate instruction is provided.

      Rather than defining a term thoroughly the first time it was used, I decided to let the definition and understanding of terms and concepts evolve throughout the book. The editor’s afterword includes information on the sources used in the book and how the material was edited that may help to put this in context. I let terms be reintroduced many times. I felt this approach was in keeping with how the author originally presented this material. Like the mysterious primordial dot that pops up over and over again in this book, wisdom is always fresh. It is never redundant.

      I hope that readers will, in this spirit, enjoy and explore the repetition of concepts and definitions in this book. Think of it, if you will, as though you were trying a dozen different varieties of apples over the course of the autumn. Whenever you bite into an apple, you experience the sameness, or the appleness, of the fruit as well as the particular flavor of the variety—Winesap, McIntosh, or Golden Delicious. Or you might approach this book like sipping fine single-malt whiskey or excellent green tea or enjoying a spicy curry. Each sip or each bite is the same, yet different. There is a deepening and blending of the flavors.

      Music has a similar quality. The repetition, with variations, is obvious in many musical forms, from traditional music—such as the Indonesian gamelon, the Japanese gagaku, or the fiddle music of Scotland and Cape Breton—to the complexities of modern jazz. A fugue by Bach and a symphony by Beethoven also repeat their themes myriad times; songs have their choruses, which echo over and over.

      Indeed, it may be helpful to think of the chapters in this book as a series of love songs. There is rarely any new information in a love song. What makes it interesting is how it expresses this most basic of human emotions. The life of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was one long love song dedicated to sentient beings. It is a privilege to have been able to edit a few of the verses.

      I hope you will enjoy these songs of basic goodness.

      Dorje Yutri, Carolyn Rose Gimian

      June 27, 1998

      Halifax, Nova Scotia

      1. For information about Shambhala Training, see Resources. For information about the history and structure of the Shambhala Training program and its relationship to the material in this book, please see the editor’s afterword.

      2. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it is not uncommon for both teachers and students to receive new names or titles in connection with religious vows they have taken or practices they are given. In keeping with the use of the author’s Shambhala name in this book, I also have signed the editor’s preface and afterword with both my Western and Shambhala names.

      3. The practice of meditation and the teachings of Shambhala warriorship are offered by Shambhala Training in many locations in North America, South America, Europe, Australia, Africa, and parts of Asia. For information about Shambhala Training, see the resources section at the back of the book.

      PROLOGUE

      The Shambhala training is based on developing gentleness and genuineness so that we can help ourselves and develop tenderness in our hearts. We no longer wrap ourselves in the sleeping bag of our cocoon. We feel responsible for ourselves, and we feel good taking responsibility. We also feel grateful that, as human beings, we can actually work for others. It is about time that we did something to help the world. It is the right time, the right moment, for this training to be introduced.

      DRIVEN BY SURVIVAL, hassled by the demands of life, we live in a world completely thronged by holding on to our state of existence, our livelihood, our jobs. People throughout this century and for at least the last few thousand years have been trying to solve our problems right and left. Throughout history, in fact, great prophets, teachers, masters, gurus, yogins, saints of all kinds have appeared and tried to solve the problems of life. Their message has been quite definite: Try to be good. Be gentle to yourselves, to your neighbors, your parents, your relatives, your spouse—to the whole world. If you are good to others, you will relieve their anxiety. Then you will have excellent neighbors, excellent relatives, an excellent wife, an excellent husband, an excellent world. That message has been presented a thousand times. Our lives are enriched by many sacred writings, including the ancient traditions of Taoism, Vedic texts, sutras, tantras, and shastras¹—sacred texts of all kinds. Modern libraries and bookstores are filled with these attempts to reach us. People try so hard to help, even placing the Gideon Bible in hotel rooms.

      Many of those teachers and saints belong to a theistic tradition. That is to say, they worship the one God, and they are monotheists, or they are presenting sacred messages from the multitheism of other traditions. On the other hand, Buddhism is a nontheistic spiritual discipline, which does not talk in terms of worship and does not regard the world as somebody’s creation. According to the Buddhist teachings, there was no great artificer who fashioned the world. This world is created or produced and happens to be purely through our own existence. We exist; therefore, we have fashioned this particular world. Then there are entirely different schools of thought, supported by scientific discoveries, that say that everything is an evolutionary process. We have Darwinian theories of how, from a monkey or a fish, human beings came to exist.

      There are many conflicting notions about the origins of existence. But whether it is according to theism, nontheism, or a scientific approach, there is this particular world—which is created and which we have. To theologians or scientists, it may be terribly important to figure out why we are here or how we came to be here. But from the point of view of Shambhala vision, the main concern is not why I am here or why you are here. Why you happen to have a white shirt, a red shirt, long hair, or short hair is not the question. The real question is, Since we’re here, how are we going to live from now onward? We may or may not have a long time to live. Impermanence is always there. Right now, you may cease to live. As you walk out of the room you’re in right now, something may happen to you. You may face death. There are many eventualities of life or death. You may face physical problems, sicknesses of all kinds. You may be subject to cancer. Nonetheless, you have to live from now onward.

      The basic point of the Shambhala teachings is to realize that there is no outside help to save you from the terror and the horror of life. The best doctor of the doctors and the best medicine of the medicines and the best technology of the technologies cannot save you from your life. The best consultants, the best bank loans, and the best insurance policies cannot save you. Eventually, you must realize that you have to do something rather than depending on technology, financial help, your smartness, or good thinking of any kind—none of which will save you. That may seem like the black truth, but it is the real truth. Often, in the Buddhist tradition, it is called the vajra truth, the diamond truth, the truth you cannot avoid or destroy. We cannot avoid our lives at all. We have to face our lives, young or old, rich or poor. Whatever happens, we cannot save ourselves from our lives at all. We have to face the eventual truth—not even the eventual truth but the real truth of our lives. We are here; therefore, we have to learn how to go forward with our lives.

      This truth is what we call the wisdom of Shambhala. The introduction of such wisdom into North American culture is a historical landmark. However, my purpose is not to convert you to what I have to say. Rather, the more you understand, the more you will realize your own responsibility. So I am speaking to you not only from the point of view of the trumpeter but also from the point of view of the trumpetees. Rather than watching the trumpeter, what is important is to hear the trumpet music.

      THE KINGDOM

      According to tradition, the Kingdom of Shambhala was a kingdom in Central Asia where this wisdom was taught and an excellent society was created. In that society, the citizens’ conduct and their behavior were based on having less anxiety. Essentially, anxiety comes from not facing the current situation you are in. The Kingdom of Shambhala and the citizens, the subjects, of Shambhala were able to face their reality. The Kingdom of Shambhala could be said to be a mythical kingdom or a real kingdom—to the extent that you believe in Atlantis or in heaven. It has been said that the kingdom was technologically advanced and that the citizens had tremendous intelligence. Spirituality was secularized,

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