In this modern spiritual classic, the Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa highlights the commonest pitfall to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: what he calls "spiritual materialism. " The universal tendency, he shows, is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement--the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty. "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use," he said, "even spirituality." His incisive, compassionate teachings serve to wake us up from this trick we all play on ourselves, and to offer us a far brighter reality: the true and joyous liberation that inevitably involves letting go of the self rather than working to improve it. It is a message that has resonated with students for nearly thirty years, and remains fresh as ever today.
This new edition includes a foreword by Chogyam Trungpa's son and lineage holder, Sakyong Mipham.

A mudra is a symbolic gesture or action that gives physical expression to an inner state. The spirit of this collection of songs of devotion and poems, written by Chogyam Trungpa between 1959 and 1971, is spontaneous and celebratory. This volume also includes the ten traditional Zen oxherding pictures accompanied by a unique commentary that offers an unmistakably Tibetan flavor. Fans of this renowned teacher will enjoy the heartfelt devotional quality of this early work.

In what he calls a "200 percent potent" teaching, Chogyam Trungpa reveals how the spiritual path is a raw and rugged "unlearning" process that draws us away from the comfort of conventional expectations and conceptual attitudes toward a naked encounter with reality. The tantric paradigm for this process is the story of the Indian master Naropa (1016-1100), who is among the enlightened teachers of the Kagyu lineage of the Tibetan Buddhism. Naropa was the leading scholar at Nalanda, the Buddhist monastic university, when he embarked upon the lonely and arduous path to enlightenment. After a series of daunting trials, he was prepared to receive the direct transmission of the awakened state of mind from his guru, Tilopa. Teachings that he received, including those known as the six doctrines of Naropa, have been passed down in the lineages of Tibetan Buddhism for a millennium.
Trungpa's commentary shows the relevance of Naropa's extraordinary journey for today's practitioners who seek to follow the spiritual path. Naropa's story makes it possible to delineate in very concrete terms the various levels of spiritual development that lead to the student's readiness to meet the teacher's mind. Trungpa thus opens to Western students of Buddhism the path of devotion and surrender to the guru as the embodiment and representative of reality.

This title is a continuation of the ideas explored by the author in a previous title Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. There, the author offers a practical guide to enlightened living, or nowness. In Great Eastern Sun, he asks how nowness can be extended to the future.

Westerners wanting to know about tantra--particularly the Buddhist tantra of Tibet--often find only speculation and fancy. Tibet has been shrouded in mystery, and "tantra" has been called upon to name every kind of esoteric fantasy. In "The Dawn of Tantra " the reader meets a Tibetan meditation master and a Western scholar, each of whose grasp of Buddhist tantra is real and unquestionable. This collaboration is both true to the intent of the ancient Tibetan teachings and relevant to contemporary Western life.

The "Abhidharma" is a collection of Buddhist scriptures that investigate the workings of the mind and the states of human consciousness. In this book, Chogyam Trungpa shows how an examination of the formation of the ego provides us with an opportunity to develop real intelligence. Trungpa also presents the practice of meditation as the means that enables us to see our psychological situation clearly and directly.

The Tibetan word "bardo" is usually associated with life after death. Here, Chogyam Trungpa discusses bardo in a very different sense: as the peak experience of any given moment. Our experience of the present moment is always colored by one of six psychological states: the god realm (bliss), the jealous god realm (jealousy and lust for entertainment), the human realm (passion and desire), the animal realm (ignorance), the hungry ghost realm (poverty and possessiveness), and the hell realm (aggression and hatred). In relating these realms to the six traditional Buddhist bardo experiences, Trungpa provides an insightful look at the "madness" of our familiar psychological patterns and shows how they present an opportunity to transmute daily experience into freedom.

This book is based on two historic seminars given by the author in the 1970s. In them the author introduced the tantric teachings of Tibetan Buddhism to his Western students for the first time. Each seminar bore the title "The Nine Yanas." Yana, a Sanskrit word meaning "vehicle, " refers to a body of doctrine and practical instruction that enables students to advance spiritually. Nine vehicles, arranged as successive levels, make up the whole path of Buddhist practice. Teaching all nine means giving a total picture of the spiritual journey. The author's nontheoretical, experiential approach opens up a world of fundamental psychological insights and subtleties. He speaks directly to a contemporary Western audience, using earthy analogies that establish the ancient teachings of the Buddha firmly in the midst of ordinary everyday life.

Chogyam Trungpa wrote more than two dozen books on Buddhism and the Shambhala path of warriorship. "The Essential Chogyam Trungpa " blends excerpts from bestsellers like "Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Meditation in Action, " and other titles into a concise overview of Trungpa's teachings. Forty selections from fourteen different books articulate the secular path of the Shambhala warrior as well as the Buddhist path of meditation and awakening. This "new classic" vividly demonstrates Trungpa's great appreciation of Western culture which, combined with his deep understanding of the Tibetan tradition, makes these teachings uniquely accessible to contemporary readers. It will appeal to beginning students of meditation as well as seasoned readers of Eastern religion.

Trungpa wrote many of his poems in English. They combine the tenets of classical Tibetan poetry with the vernacular of modern America, where Trungpa taught and adapted the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism to reach the hippie generation.