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"Although I live in the slime and muck of the dark age;
Although I stumble in the thick black fog of materialism...."
He predicted these dark times we now live in.
"... The tradition of meditation is waning, and we are drunk with spiritual pride."
He had an urgency about him; he never gave up on anyone,
on showing us the full potential of our humanity.
CRAZY WISDOM
He said to me that he felt he was at a critical point in his life.
He said at this particular point, I'm on the verge of becoming enlightened,
and when people get to this point, they either go crazy or attain realization,
which, of course, made me feel a little bit anxious - I had just married him!
Supposing, if you become enlightened -
then what?
Of course, automatically, the answer then, of course, I'll become, a buddha.
Enlightenment. [laughter]
You are about to become an egomaniac.
(Pema Chödron): He said, you know, the job of the teacher is to insult you,
and that was insult the ego.
♫
(Carolyn Gimian): He didn't seem to hesitate to just throw people in deep water,
and hope that they could swim.
(Pema Chödron): Everything he did was with the intention of waking people up.
[chanting] Chogyam Trungpa's monastery. Tibet.
Well, we're talking about someone who was rigorously trained
to understand the highest teachings of Tibetan Buddhism -
fled the Communist Chinese invasion of Tibet,
got himself to Oxford to master English,
and present these ancient teachings in a brand-new language to an alien culture -
the English. ♫
[♫ Joe Cocker sings Leon Russel's song Delta Lady]
(Diana Mukpo): He was driving with a girl in a car.
I had heard he hadn't been the best driver in the world.
And I don't know if alcohol was involved or not,
but the car went out of control and it went through a joke shop window.
He woke up in the hospital partly paralyzed, and as he tells it,
this car accident was to him a message
that he had to completely strip himself of all facade in the Western World,
and present the teachings without any props of robes, or being the great Tibetan lama.
"Let's go see the lama" he used to say.
♫
So, in 1970, his bags were packed, and with a one-way ticket to America,
he landed smack in the middle of spiritual longing and confusion.
♫
It was a tumultuous time, and a time when there was a passionate search for meaning.
I think there was just a great disillusionment of, like, what were we really about,
and middle class values were sort of up on the block.
He said in order to create an enlightened society, you have to change the culture,
and in order to change the culture, you have to change the art.
(Pema Chödron): With Trungpa Rinpoche, the behavior was always terrifying to me,
and I was always wondering when I was going to be around when -
you know, anything could happen.
Have you had the experience of majesty, a sense of majesty and calm,
and centeredness in any rock and roll that you have heard?
Unfortunately not. I try to, but it's very hard. I haven't.
I find it very hard. I thought at some point I was missing something,
[laughter]
But it turned out to be I wasn't missing anything at all.
[laughter]
Can you push down there a bit, Sweetheart?
Yes, it's good.
How do you say Sweetheart in Japanese?
(Pema Chödron): Lots of his students were his lovers, and that was known.
He didn't hide anything. He didn't hide his drinking. He didn't hide his sexuality.
I think that's why during his lifetime he never came crumbling down.
(Diana Mukpo): After being married to him for 17 years,
you always knew that his intentions were good
and you could always expect that he would be kind,
but fundamentally, I don't really know what made him tick.
♫
♫
[sound of Tibetan horns, chanting and cymbals]
[canon fires]
[♫]
[♫]