The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (3 page)

Having presented a seminar on the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
at Karmê Chöling in the Summer of 1971, Trungpa Rinpoche gave the seminars that form
Transcending Madness
in quick succession that fall. He gave one other seminar on the teachings from the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
, in the summer of 1972 at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center. That was the last seminar he taught on the bardos. When he originally presented these talks, there were perhaps as many as two hundred people in the audience at each seminar, with many overlaps from one seminar to the next. All together, perhaps five hundred individuals heard these teachings directly. A few hundred more may have read the transcripts over the course of the next fifteen years. The material in the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
of course has reached a large audience, but it is only since 1992, with the publication of
Transcending Madness
twenty years after the original talks were given, that most of the material on the bardos has been widely available. The majority of students who studied with Chögyam Trungpa, who encountered him well after 1971, may never have studied this material or even known of its existence.

Between 1970 and 1976, Trungpa Rinpoche taught more than three hundred seminars, some of them consisting of ten to fifteen talks, in which he presented the principles behind many important tantric teachings he had received in Tibet. The role of the Trungpa Tulku lineage in preserving the teachings of the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
is an excellent example of the preciousness of the material that he transmitted in the early days in America. In his foreword to
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
he writes: “The
Bardo Thödröl
is one of a series of instructions on six types of liberation. . . . Padmasambhava buried these texts in the Gampo hills in central Tibet. . . . Many other texts and sacred objects were buried in this way in different places throughout Tibet, and are known as terma, ‘hidden treasures.’ Padmasambhava gave the transmission of power to discover the termas to his twenty-five chief disciples. The bardo texts were later discovered by Karma Lingpa, who was an incarnation of one of these disciples. . . . Karma Lingpa belonged to the Nyingma tradition but his students were all of the Kagyü tradition [to which Chögyam Trungpa belonged]. He gave the first transmission of the six liberation teachings to Dödul Dorje, the thirteenth Karmapa, who in turn gave it to Gyurme Tenphel, the eighth Trungpa. This transmission was kept alive in the Surmang monasteries of the Trungpa lineage, and from there it spread back into the Nyingma tradition” (Foreword).

Thus, Trungpa Rinpoche’s lineage and his monastery, Surmang, were instrumental in the preservation and the propagation of this material, which was transmitted personally to him as a precious inheritance, starting when he was eight years old. It is remarkable that he trusted Westerners with this material, especially in those first years that he taught in America. This is typical, however, of the confidence he had in Western students to receive, preserve, and transmit the heart teachings of his lineage.

He presented all of this material in a way that was “self-secret.” He was always careful not to give away tantric secrets, particularly by presenting material too soon or to an inappropriate audience. In the early 1970s, he did not expect or want people to undertake advanced vajrayana practices. Until 1973, the main practice for all of his students in America was the sitting practice of meditation. Then, beginning with the first Vajradhatu Seminary in that year, he began to introduce the preliminary practices of the ngöndro to a small group of students. The number of students involved in tantric practice grew slowly over the years.

However, in the early 1970s, partially because people were
not
engaged in vajrayana practice at this stage, he was able to present many of the principles of vajrayana and many significant teachings in a way that flew in under the radar of people’s conceptual minds. He just bypassed the normal circuits in people’s minds with this material. They knew that something extraordinary was being said and taking place, but in general they didn’t grasp its depth, not having the tools or the training to do so. Nevertheless, the teachings left an imprint on people, which for some allowed them to keep a kernel of this material in their minds over the years. The seeds he planted in people drew them back to this material many years later and led, for example, to the editing and publication of a book such as
Transcending Madness
following his death.

There are many other seminars from this period that remain unpublished, unedited, and in many cases untranscribed. These are teachings that Trungpa Rinpoche gave to the West as a precious treasure of knowledge and wisdom. The publication of early material was one of the inspirations for Shambhala Publications to launch the Dharma Ocean Series, in which
Transcending Madness
and many other titles based on early teachings appear. The series has proven to be a great vehicle for making this material available, and hopefully there will be many more volumes to come. Additionally, Vajradhatu Publications—the publishing arm established in the mid-1970s by Rinpoche within his own association of meditation centers—has taken on a role in editing and making available many of the early seminars. Several books published by Vajradhatu appear in Volume Six. This publishing program is certainly related to the fact that Judith Lief has been heading up Vajradhatu’s editorial efforts since 1989. She continues to focus much of her editorial energy on the early seminal teachings given by Chögyam Trungpa.

The earliest days in the Vajradhatu Buddhist community coincided with a time in North America when young people were often unkempt, undisciplined, and revolutionary. Many were exploring Eastern spirituality; some were protesting the war in Vietnam and the corporate culture in America; some were dropping acid and dropping out—a well-known story. The Buddhist community was no exception to all this, and the “scene,” as it was called in those days, reflected all of these elements. Looking back on this period, there may be slight embarrassment on the part of those who were part of the scene, although a twinge of nostalgia is also likely to arise. For those who came later, there may be a tendency to dismiss the formative period as childish and misguided at best. It would be unfortunate, however, to dismiss the teachings that Trungpa Rinpoche gave during this period. The students may have been naive and untamed; the teachings he gave were not.

When one sees photographs or films from this era, Rinpoche’s audiences often appear disheveled. Nevertheless, they were a remarkably intelligent group, amazingly tuned in to what he was teaching, even though they may not have grasped the inner meaning. This simultaneous understanding and ignorance may sound contradictory, but it is not uncharacteristic of Rinpoche’s effect on people. In many teaching situations throughout the time he taught in North America, he was able to evoke the interest and intellect of his audience and to inspire them, almost beyond themselves. If one listens to the questions and answers from these early seminars, one sees how penetrating and precise the discussions were. There was the occasional question about astral projection or auras that completely missed the mark, but by and large people were engaged and open to what he was teaching, although not fully aware of its deeper significance.

Since Rinpoche’s death, there has been an effort to archive and preserve recordings and transcripts of all of his teachings, particularly this early material. There are more than five thousand audio recordings of his talks, which are now housed in the Shambhala Archives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the international headquarters of the Buddhist organization he founded. Presciently enough, on his part, from the time that he arrived in the United States, Rinpoche requested that all of his lectures be taped. Most of the recordings are of high quality, both in terms of the tape and equipment that were used and the skill of the volunteer recording “engineers.” Nevertheless, audio tape does not last a long time. There are now significant problems with many of the original recordings, and there is an ongoing effort to transfer the material to new media. In the future, many important and unique teachings should emerge from this treasury of dharma.

Trungpa Rinpoche did not like to repeat himself too many times. Once when I was working with him on a book, I asked if he would dictate material on a topic for a chapter. “Haven’t I already done that?” was his reply. With a little research, I found that he had indeed presented the material I needed in an earlier seminar. He trusted that I would find what I needed. Similarly, in this case, having presented the bardo teachings in 1971 and 1972, he didn’t feel the need to present them again. I’m sure he expected his students to rediscover them at the appropriate time.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo
was, as noted above, the result of the collaboration between Francesca Fremantle and Chögyam Trungpa. She was a Sanskrit scholar who first met Trungpa Rinpoche in England in the 1960s. In an interview she said, “I was translating a Buddhist tantra and was having a lot of difficulties with it. So, that led to my meeting Trungpa Rinpoche.”
²
From that initial meeting, she recognized Rinpoche as her teacher and began studying with him. He suggested that they work together on a new translation of the
Bardo Thödröl.
She reports:

When the Vidyadhara first suggested translating the
Bardo Thödröl
I was not very enthusiastic about the idea. I had not been particularly attracted to it by the only translation available at that time [the original English version translated by Kazi Dawa-Samdup and edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, commonly known as the Evans-Wentz translation]; in fact I don’t think I had even managed to get through the whole book. But in 1971 Rinpoche gave a seminar directly based on the text, as well as two others on closely related themes [the bardo seminars], which revealed it in a completely new light. As he explained the bardo teachings, it became clear that this text was very close to his heart, and as it had already been translated into English, he particularly wanted a more accurate version to be made available. That seminar became the basis of his commentary to the
Bardo Thödröl
in our 1975 publication,
The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
The tapes of his talks were transcribed and the subject matter was slightly condensed and rearranged, but it was edited very lightly, as I wanted to preserve his unique way of expressing himself as far as possible.
³

In 2002 Shambhala Publications published another volume by Francesca Fremantle on the teachings from
The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
In
Publishers Weekly’s
review of her new book,
Luminous Emptiness: Understanding the
Tibetan Book of the Dead, the reviewer comments: “The 1975 version of Padmasambhava’s original eighth-century text, translated by Fremantle and Chögyam Trungpa, strengthened a bridge between Tibetan Buddhism and the West.” At the time of publication it was a groundbreaking translation, and it made these teachings accessible to a much broader audience. If Francesca Fremantle, a Sanskrit scholar, had trouble relating to the original translation, one can imagine the difficulties it posed for the average reader. This is not to denigrate the original effort; Evans-Wentz deserves recognition for his great contributions in bringing sacred texts from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition into the Western language. Nevertheless, a new translation was needed and appreciated.

Trungpa Rinpoche had worked on translations from the Tibetan with a number of students in England before coming to North America.
⁴
However,
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
was the first translation that Rinpoche worked on which was published as a book, and it remains the most influential, in terms of the size of its readership.

The Evans-Wentz translation was associated in the 1960s and early ’70s with the “psychedelic” movement in the United States. Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, better known as Ram Dass, felt that the “visions” described in the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
had similarities to the “visions” experienced by people under the influence of psychedelic drugs.
⁵
The new translation of the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
did much to dispel the idea of the bardo states as extreme hallucinations or states distant from everyday experience. Rinpoche and Francesca Fremantle’s approach to the text brought these teachings into the realm of how life is lived day to day and how confusion and awareness interact in our minds all of the time. The earlier comments on
Transcending Madness
discuss the central role of the bardo teachings in the Trungpa lineage. Rinpoche—as a custodian of these teachings through many lifetimes—had strong reasons to want to see a genuine understanding of this text in the West. It must have been something of a shock to him to see the sacred teachings of his lineage expropriated as aids to psychedelic explorations. In characteristic fashion, he didn’t attack this approach head on; he simply took the discussion to another, more profound level, rendering the earlier views largely irrelevant.

To help in the preparation of the introductions to
The Collected Works
, Francesca Fremantle sent me some information on her work with Trungpa Rinpoche, a few lines of which were quoted above. She had this to say about their work together:

For our work on the text itself, I would prepare a draft translation, and then we would go through it together. We did not have time to cover the whole text in detail, but I would ask him about anything that seemed difficult or especially important. Any mistakes are entirely my responsibility, as it means that I did not identify them as problems that should have been brought to his attention. We came across several idiomatic phrases and words that are not found in dictionaries or that are used here in unusual ways. There are also certain words that have special meanings in the context of the iconography of tantric deities. Apart from these examples, Rinpoche’s help was particularly valuable in some of the descriptive passages, where colloquial expressions occur, conveying vivid impressions of light, colour, texture and sound.