Talks by
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Online audio and video presentations of CTR's lectures and seminars

The Sun of Wisdom

This seminar is offered at this time to mark the re-publication of The Sun of Wisdom, a guru sadhana composed by Chögyam Trungpa to his root guru, Jamgon Kongtrul of Shechen. This extraordinarily beautiful Sadhana can be practiced by all tantrikas (no lung or other permission required), and can be ordered from the Nalanda Translation Committee.

Read more about The Sun of Wisdom, including how to order a copy.

The Shambhala Archives Audio Recovery Project

From reel-to-reel technology of the 1970s to digital formats of the 2000s and beyond, the Shambhala Archives continues the massive task of caring for thousands of recorded lectures given by Chogyam Trungpa. To learn more about this essential work, and how you can help, listen to Carolyn Gimian and Chris Levy talk about the Audio Recovery Project.

Make a donation to the Shambhala Archives

MP3 downloads available soon

Downloads of these talks will be available soon for a nominal fee. Proceeds will go to the Shambhala Archives to help support the ongoing work of the audio recovery project. We will send out an announcement when the downloads are available.

Sponsors

These talks are presented in collaboration with the Shambhala Archives and the Chogyam Trungpa Legacy Project.

Thank you to the Shambhala Archives and the Legacy Project for helping to make this presentation possible.

Thank you to Marguerite Sands for design consulting. Thank you also to Stefan Carmin and Alec Munro for technical support.




Jamgon Kongtrul Seminar:
Meditations on the student-teacher relationship

Boulder, Colorado, November-December 1974


Talk 1


Talk 2


Talk 3


Talk 4


Talk 5


Talk 6
Summary
In this extraordinary seminar, Chögyam Trungpa explores his intimate relationship with his root teacher, Jamgon Kongtrul of Shechen, and how this relates to the student teacher relationship in Buddhism altogether. He also talks about the first Jamgon Kongtrul, Jamgon Kongtrul the Great, and his approach to ecumenicism and the contemplative traditions in Buddhism. As with the approach of the newly published Mishap Lineage, (which is about the Trungpa Lineage) the tone of this seminar is highly personal and direct. The Vidyadhara stresses the contemplative tradition of Jamgon Kongtrul and the highly personal aspects of the teacher-student relationship as relevant to practitioners in the West.
Discussion
June Crow and Phil Karl, both senior students of Chögyam Trungpa, will be facilitating an online discussion of this seminar. Your comments will be posted here, along with comments and questions from June and Phil.
Greetings everyone
June Crow and I were asked to facilitate this online discussion, and for my small part, I’m very happy to be able to kick this off. I expect many of you visiting here knew Trungpa Rinpoche, and I’m sure it was, as it was for me, great to hear him again. Some of you reading this may have never heard Rinpoche teach before and, as I’ve heard sometimes from students, he can be hard to follow. If so, I’ll encourage you here; his speech patterns and accent may be unfamiliar, but he was very precise in what, and how, he spoke. I remember when I first heard him teach, it was very hard for me to follow. It felt good, but I often came away wondering what had just transpired. If this is true for you, this will change if you work at it a little.

There was so much of interest, and relevance, in this first talk. For me, what jumped out is the idea that an authentic lineage is a practicing lineage—a living tradition. And, that Rinpoche’s teacher, Jamgon Kongtrul, always wanted to know how he felt and seemed delighted when he was argumentative. Toward the end of the talk, he said something like; first there’s truth, then it gets watered down, then there’s doctrine, then warfare (sectarian warfare). Can you think of any examples of that one? -Phil Karl, Boulder
Here is the link to a short audio clip [02:45] of the section in Talk One which Phil mentions.
Please your send comments and questions to