Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche: My work is dedicated to present
the notion of enlightenment to the West.
And so on behalf of this world, (laughter)
I would like to request you to come and do something about it.
(Mounted band plays - trumpets, etc. marching style)
>> Shastri Peter Conradi: He talked about his love of England,
he talked about his gratitude to this country.
>> Shastri Jane Hope: He was completely fascinated with all of
the manifestations of our culture and our spirituality.
>> PC: And England was his first port of call as a very, very young man;
and this is where it began to unfold.
(Mounted band plays - trumpets, etc. marching style)
>> Tessa Watt (Festival Director): So here we are in London, in Russell Square,
which is right in the center near the British Museum and near the University of London;
and that is where we are going to be holding a festival called "Awake in the World",
a festival of meditation, arts, and social vision, in September, 12th to the 15th September 2013.
And the inspiration is really that this is 50 years since the arrival of a young Tibetan monk,
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, off a ship from India, here in London;
and he then went on to inspire many thousands of people with his vision,
not only of how you could take the teachings of Buddhism into Western life;
but also how we could create a more enlightened society.
He wasn't living here in London, he lived in Oxford and was studying there in Oxford;
but he came frequently to London and made connections with everyone who was interested
in Buddhism in London. They had never met a real live Tibetan Rinpoche before,
most of them; so he became very celebrated quite quickly.
And in the festival that we are doing to celebrate his 50 years in the West,
we are going to be meeting some of the people and hearing from some of the people
that were students of his in the 60s. It's not a story that is often told;
because many of the biographies start in 1970 when he went to America;
so we really want to celebrate these early years in Britain
and find out more about what he was like and what he was teaching in those days.
>> JH: I thought, "What a strange man". [laughs]
>> PC: Nothing was quite as you expect.
>>Mauri Sherrington: You can't sort of pin him down.
>> PC: It was alarming being around him and it was scary;0 but it was also joyous.
>>JH: One of my friends said it was like meeting a dragon.
He was like a mythical creature.
>> PC: Almost everyone agrees that he could manifest differently.
>> MS: I would say a mixture of sadness and also humor.
>> JH. Founder of the London Shambhala Center: He has beautiful writing
and something connected; I just thought I would really like to meet this person.
>> PC. Author of 'Going Buddhist': I cooked for him roast lamb and rosemary, roast potatoes,
Yorkshire pud, French beans. He loved that; he asked for more, and I served him.
>> MS. Communications Co-ordinator, LSMC: Photographs of him, stories about him,
he had... it is almost like, you know obviously I never met him;
but it is almost like I get a real strong sense of who he was.
>> JH: You just looked at him and he had this, he seemed sometimes like a mountain,
just a mountain, but he also had this amazing presence;
whereas somehow you just felt delighted to be around him.
>> PC: I feel as if my life began a second time
when I encountered his work, which was "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism".
>> MS: Getting involved with Shambhala and the Shambhala teachings,
I feel like that is the main point that changed my life quite considerably
and has had a lot of impact on the way I understand the world
and I would say yes, he has had a ton of impact on my life through those teachings.
>> PC: And it felt as if someone had wheeled up a cannon and blown a hole straight through me.
I remember my beloved sister saying to me the following week, "How are you?";
and I said to her, "I'm fine. In fact, I'm not here" and she got it.
>> JH: I remember when I first read Trungpa Rinpoche it was like the first time in my life
that I really felt somebody understood my mind, somebody understood anybody's mind.
>> MS: They're not your average kind of spiritual books;
there is something more to them that is quite special.
>> PC: What is extraordinary; and I think is paradoxical,
is how he got inside the Western mind.
He somehow had an ability with all his students and with many people, who are not his students,
to speak to the heart, speak with astonishing immediacy and directness.
>> JH: When he was teaching, he was just finding,
trying to find the best method of getting through to us, to our psychology.
>> PC: He really wanted to make meditation available to people
who either had a religion or detested all religion.
>> TW: The Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche is going to be leading us in the Festival;
he is going to be giving an enormous public talk on Thursday night
and then he will be also teaching on the weekend on Saturday and Sunday.
The festival is from the 12th to 15th of September [2013], and it is going to involve
one day which is celebrating the life of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
with students from the 1960s who were some of his earliest students in the West,
and many other really interesting speakers.
And then we will have a weekend where we're going to have workshops and panels
and all kinds of teachings to explore, how can we develop our own personal path
and how can we then use that sense of wakefulness that we discover in ourselves
in order to be able to be more wakeful in society
and to transform the society that we live in for the better.
>> JH: You know you might see this title on a poster and think "Awake in the World?",
and then, "Well, am I awake?".
>> PC: It means being here, it means occupying the present;
training oneself not to try to hook the future and not to try and reheat the past.
It sounds very simple; but it isn't; because these habits are deeply ingrained in us;
but there is very, very profound magic in this.
>> MS: Well, today it was sitting down in a café and being present when I was eating my lunch,
like sort of actually tasting and feeling the textures, and watching other people's hands.
>> JH: Being awake to the world automatically actually
means that you are awake to other people.
>> PC: He is right, clearly, that the spiritual path can't simply be; it can't just be for me;
it must have implications for how we deal with each other;
therefore there is a social implication automatically.
>> MS: I think being... experiencing being together, I think that's really important.
I do think London is actually... there’s a lot of that happening already;
there’s a lot of small networks happening;
but I think people generally, there is a sense of well-being
that you can get from being connected to other people, in a positive way.
>> JH: If the festival can actually... can make a bridge to that genuine desire that people have
for leading a good life, then it will be wonderful.
>> PC: He often said we are not actually, as it were,
necessarily going to be enlightened in one lifetime, which is a fond hope;
he said but we may become good in parts, which I find encouraging.
>> VCTR: I am simply asking you to serve with us
to see if an enlightened... good enlightened society,
saving alone is not enough; but we have to build enlightened society at the same time.
(female singing over acoustic guitar) I can hear his voice saying "don't give up, never give up;
because who is going to save you from yourself?
you don't know what that is; who's going to save you from yourself;
you're not alone on this; oh you're not alone on this; you're not alone on this".