It has been twenty years since Chögyam Trungpa left this world.
As an artist, he taught us all to be artists in every moment of our lives, and to give art its proper space, that is, the whole space.
As a meditation teacher, he dared to introduce practice as fully disinterested space in which one learns to genuinely dwell in the nakedness of open heart.
As spiritual guide, he showed us that the relationship between teacher and student is based on love—inconceivable love. Such a love shows us the world anew, poetically accomplished.
It is impossible to read a book by Chögyam Trungpa, or watch him in a video without experiencing fear at some point, without feeling panic. One is no longer safe. His genuine exposition of the dharma strips us down to the most painful point of our own hypocrisy, down to our lie.
If we find him disturbing, it is not so much his lifestyle or his relationship to alcohol and sex that disturbs us. Rather, it is his loyalty to the dharma. Any conjuring up of Chögyam Trungpa’s work that attempts to curtail this fact is an impostor.
May the blade of his ardour never be dulled! May his outrageousness, his unforgiving intransigence, his genuine and profound loveat times cheerfully terrifyingnever cease to haunt us!
