Drala

The first book I read in the new year was Dragon Thunder, My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, by Trungpa's wife, Diana Mukpo. The late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was one of the first and most important teachers to bring Buddhism to the West; he escaped from Tibet, went first to Scotland, and then to the United States, where he founded the Tail of the Tiger (Karmê Chöling ) retreat center in Barnet, Vermont; Tibetan Buddhist centers in Colorado and Nova Scotia, and, with the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki (founder of Tassajara) started Naropa University.

Because I lived for so long fairly close to Karme Chöling, I knew many people who were his disciples, and  visited the center a few times. I never met Trungpa personally - I certainly wish now that I had - but his presence and teaching had a pervasive influence on the area of Vermont where I lived, and they certainly affected me. He has appeared to me in dreams, and I've read a number of his books and been profoundly affected by them. One of his disciples taught me to meditate, many years ago. Although, as a kind of crossover, Merton-styled contemplative, I feel closer to the Zen tradition than to Tibetan Buddhism, Trungpa's iconoclastic, "crazy-wisdom" was larger than anything that could be contained by a label; I feel very indebted to his teaching and his wisdom about communicating Buddhist teachings to western students.

Like most of us, he was also a flawed and controversial person; he died of alcoholism at 48, and made an error in his choice of a dharma heir: the Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin died of AIDS and also transmitted the disease to another student, but even before that was clearly seen not to be capable of handling the role completely and selflessly. After the premature deaths of both Trungpa Rinpoche and the Vajra Regent, the sangha splintered; his oldest son has now taken over some of the leadership, and seems to have a serene, strong presence.

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A few days ago, in the comments on the post "Tea with a Friend," Carolee wrote: "I see that you live in a magical world. I am envious. And then I know as writers we can find magic." I thought a lot about that comment; no one had ever said anything quite like that to me. It's true that I do believe that we live in a magical world and that its wonder is always all around us, waiting for us to lift our head and discover it: I simply never think of it as magical - it is the way the world is, and has always been for me. I am the one who sometimes forgets, who becomes immersed in my own worries and preoccupations, and who needs to practice.

So when I turned next to reading Shambala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chögyam Trungpa's attempt to chart a secular path for some of the most important teachings about how to live a centered and fearless life of compassion, in that strange way of spiritual convergence I was not surprised to find these passages in his chapter on "Discovering Magic":

We always have a choice: we can limit our perceptions so that we close off vastness, or we can allow vastness to touch us...When we draw down the power and depth of vastness into a single perception, then we are discovering and invoking magic. By magic we do not mean unnatural power over the phenomenal world, but rather the discovery of innate or primordial wisdom in the world as it is. In Tibetan this magical quality of existence, or natural wisdom, is called drala...

One of the key points in discovering drala principle is realizing that your own wisdom as a human being is not separate from the power of things as they are. They are both reflections of the unconditional wisdom of the cosmic mirror...The discovery of drala may come as an extraordinary smell, a fantastic sound, a vivid color, an unusual taste. Any perception can connect us to reality properly and fully. what we see doesn't have to be pretty, particularly; we can appreciate anything that exists. There is some principle of magic in everything, some living quality. Something living, something real is taking place in everything.

When we see things as they are, they make sense to us: the way leaves move when they are blown by the wind, the way rocks get wet when there are snowflakes sitting on them. We see how things display their harmony and their chaos at the same time. So we are never limited by beauty alone, but we appreciate all sides of reality properly.

Comments

[marja-leena]

Thank you for the quote on 'drala', Beth! it really chimes for me in my art practice in those moments when everything seems to come together, to connect. I'm going to print this and put it into my sketchbook to remind me on those 'down' days.

[Nancy]

I read two of his books many years back, and was moved by them - especially Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (if I remember correctly) -- reading this makes me want to go upstairs, where I know it is waiting on the bookshelf, and have another look at it. Dragon Thunder should be very interesting (you didn't say).

[Bill]

It's the wobble
in the walk,
it's arbor
out of true,
which divulges
the whereabouts of
a clementine striped
in the fingers of an
erratic hand.

[leslee]

We see how things display their harmony and their chaos at the same time.

The photo is a wonderful fit with the passage you quote.

[rr]

Precisely, infinitely, incomparably, wonderfully. Drala. Thank you so much for that word and this post.

When he was in Scotland Chogyam Trungpa founded the Buddhist Centre Kagyu Samye Ling which in turn administers the Holy Island Project and Holy Island is where I learnt to meditate. I should certainly read the books you mention :-)

[beth]

In Dragon Thunder, Chogyam Trungpa's wife talks quite a bit abotu the Scottish center and the falling-out he had with the lama who was running it, someone who he had been connected with in Tibet, I think. I wonder if this man is still there, or if he has died. I'd totally blanked that this might be connected to the place you've been going, rr.

Nancy - yes, I liked the book a lot and found it fascinating to read more of an inside story on people and events I'd only known peripherally.

"Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" is where I'd recommend starting, if anyone wants to read some of Chogyam Trungpa's work. I also liked "The Myth of Freedom."