From Anger to Joy
Student: Is the point of intensive practice to retrain our energy from anger to joy, and to learn how to smile? How do we do it?
Chögyam Trungpa: You just do it, I think. There’s no “how” particularly; there is no easy trick.
S: My energy is anger, and it’s got to be retrained; it’s got to be dropped.
CT: Well, if you go deeper, the sense of joy is there. The sense of joy is there. If you go slightly deeper, slightly further, you begin to realize You’re taking the whole thing quite seriously. Ca va?
S: Thank you.
CT: It’s just a question of basic exertion. You know, you have to do it yourself; nobody can make you do it. And there are no tricks for how to do it–except generally to build up your mindfulness and awareness, which builds up your basic healthy state of mind. That actually allows you to become a warrior, automatically. Apart from that there are no immediate tricks of any kind.
He called a meeting of his senior students from the Bay Area and told us that things were going to get worse in this country, that we may feel comfortable, but that our comfort was like honey on a razor blade. He said there would be economic problems and earthquakes, that the weather would become more extreme because the dralas would not be protecting the situation, and that it would be harder and harder to practice genuine dharma because of the level of aggression in the country.
The Enlightenment of the Buddha
These three talks on the enlightenment of the Buddha were given at Karme Choling in December 1975.
How I Met Rinpoche
Part One of a Conversation with Ani Pema Chödrön.Training of an American Buddhist Nun. The following conversation between Pema Chödrön and Walter Fordham took place in Halifax on 10 December 2003.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s Cremation Ceremony
Thirty years ago today, May 26, 1987, hundreds of the Vidyadhara's students gathered in the upper meadow of Karme Chöling for their teacher's cremation. This slideshow presentation of Ray Ellis's...
The Samadhi of the Guru
This is a 2007 recording of Susan Edwards reading her piece, The Samadhi of the Guru, on KGNU Radio in Boulder with music by Thomas Lenk.
In the Shadow of the Purkhang
As I turned onto the Karme Choling road in May 1987 for the cremation, my mind slipped back to the first time I set foot there.
A Kiss Is But A Kiss
In the summer of 1975 I went to Karme Chöling in Vermont for a seminar with Trungpa Rinpoche on “Meditation and Prayer in the Buddhadharma.” Someone suggested that I...
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Myth of Freedom and the Cosmic Joke with Ani Pema Chodron
In this talk, which is presented in three segments, Pema guides us through the beginning chapters of Trungpa Rinpoche's Myth of Freedom.
Creating a Drala Culture
During his lifetime, the Vidyadhara took an active role in design. I believe his personal involvement with design was due in part to the great joy he derived from...
Please Give Me Space
I'd like to share my story of a personal teaching that the Vidyadhara gave to me in the early 1970s. Its import has grown for me over these many...
Where Were You When You Heard the News?
I think it must have been a Saturday, that sunny day, April 4, 1987, because both Alice Yang and Dominique LeGrand were with me working at the store. Alice...
Richard Arthure on Meeting Chogyam Trungpa
Richard Arthure on meeting Chogyam Trungpa. Video by Bill Scheffel.
The Shrine Blessing
About 15 of us were doing the first dathun at the Abbey in January, 1986. The place was abuzz because Rinpoche was coming up to Halifax for the shrine...
A Half Hour in His Company
I was not part of Naropa in Boulder, but one day I smoked a cigarette on a bench next to Boulder Creek with Trungpa Rinpoche. I knew who he...
In The Beginning with Rinpoche
The year was 1971. I had just left NYC with my wife-to-be, after ending up a two-year stay as director of a new age enlightenment and communication center. It...
Interview with Tulku Thondup Rinpoche
This interview was conducted in Cambridge, Massachusetts in October 2014. Thank you to Sam Bercholz for conducting the interview, and to videographer Ivan Bercholz.
Part One: About his teacher,...
Memories, Dreams and Reflections of the 16th Karmapa
Black Hat, Black Mountains
I met the 16th Karmapa in 1976 when he was invited to a farmhouse in the Black Mountains of Wales. If there is one event which...
Welcome to the New Chronicles!
After almost fifteen years, the Chronicles has a new site
Glimpses of Yarne
Gampo Abbey is a Shambhala Buddhist Monastery on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. At the time of filming, it was celebrating thirty years since its founding by Chögyam...
Lineage and Devotion
As our devotion increased in these early years, we came to regard Trungpa Rinpoche as the only and the everything. It seemed that he came out of nowhere, like a bolt of lightning. But there was a larger context...
1974 Seminary
Visit the 1974 Vajradhatu Seminary in Snowmass, Colorado