Discover the Best Books Written by Chögyam Trungpa

Chögyam Trungpa (Wylie: chaos rgyam Drung pa; March 5, 1939 – April 4, 1987) was a Tibetan Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, the 11th of the Trungpa tülkus, a tertön, supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and originator of a radical re-presentation of Tibetan Buddhist teachings and the myth of Shambhala as an enlightened society that was later called Shambhala Buddhism.

Recognized both by Tibetan Buddhists and by other spiritual practitioners and scholars as a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, he was a major figure in the dissemination of Buddhism in the West, founding Vajradhatu and Naropa University and establishing the Shambhala Training method.

Among his contributions are the translation of numerous Tibetan Buddhist texts and the introduction of the Vajrayana teachings to the West. Trungpa coined the term crazy wisdom. Some of his teaching methods and actions, particularly his heavy drinking, womanizing, and the physical assault of a student and his wife, caused controversy during his lifetime and afterward.

Born in the Nangchen region of Tibet in March 1939, Chögyam Trungpa was eleventh in the line of Trungpa tülkus, an important figure in the Kagyu lineage, one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Among his three main teachers were Jamgon Kongtrul of Sechen, HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and Khenpo Gangshar.

The name Chögyam is a contraction of Chökyi Gyamtso (Tibetan: ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: Chaos-Kyi Rgya-method), which means "Ocean of Dharma." Trungpa (Tibetan: དྲུང་པ་, Wylie: Drung-pa) means "attendant". He was deeply trained in the Kagyu tradition and received his Khenpo degree at the same time as Thrangu Rinpoche; they continued to be very close in later years. 

Chögyam Trungpa was also trained in the Nyingma tradition, the oldest of the four schools, and was an adherent of the RI-mé ("nonsectarian") ecumenical movement within Tibetan Buddhism, which aspired to bring together and make available all the valuable teachings of the different schools, free of sectarian rivalry. At the time of his escape from Tibet,[9] Trungpa was head of the Surmang group of monasteries.