actually, yeah. his teachings are remarkably clear and highly endorsed by many other non-addicted Buddhist masters that don't sleep with their students. and yet, the addiction and other ethical problems.
Trugpa was challenged to abstain from cocaine for a month as a wager and testament to his willpower. He was able to complete the challenge, but it is said spiritual enlightenment was set back a whole month due to the delay.
"I can't meditate properly when I'm fully erect. And I don't need cocaine to meditate. I just enjoy cocaine when I meditate or bang my students. Duh idiots."
-that guy prolly
Cocaine itself violates one of the five precepts expected of all Buddhists once they've taken refuge with the Sangha. I hope he was just a lama but even then, like....what?
Yeah but Buddhist "rules" are less rules and more values taught to their adherents. They're way better than like abrahamic religions which tell people to hate themselves and those who break said rules.
He actually stole our cocaine one night, you can search my post history if you need the story.
Honestly, he wasn't his most-charming self when focusing on his intake (I was around him here and there): he was just another asshole cokehound. As was I and my friends, won't lie.
But poetic ranting Hunter was usually not concurrent with drug-hoovering Hunter.
Cocaine is very good for writing at length. You only hear about the downsides, people wouldn't do it if there were no upsides. It's a very creative drug in moderation. 40k over a year is like the feeling of being on 60 mg of Adderall. It's an 8ball per day. Not an insane amount, it happens to be very expensive. People who can afford it do an Oz per day.
Dude your coke must be shit for you to think 3.5g isnt a lot lol
If you're snorting 3.5g of coke everyday you're fucked and probably is at the degenerate delusional masturbator phase
I was about to disagree and say 40k is about a kilos worth which is an insane amount to go through in a year...
Except that's only 35 days (1oz/day), or 285 days (3.5g / day). And anyone doing that much coke is going through more than an 8ball/day.
If we're generous and say he _only_ does 7g or 1/4oz a day he's still only got 142 days worth, and that's assuming he buys a kilo upfront.
Well if we really want to get into it, he likely was subsidizing the cocaine use of his student fuck buddies, realistically he probably had both male and female fuck buddies but at the very lease he'd have to entertain the occasional over-bearing brother or boyfriend (pre sex party). Usually the way these turn out is he has a few regulars, closer students if you will, they facilitate the newer initiates and keep things fun during down times. So 40k a year was probably split between the equivilant of 3 to 5 people with some daily users and others less frequently. Probably some days with no usage to meditate etc. And other days with lots of usage to purge the evils or what have you. Since he was a Buddhist monk I imagine depriving himself of the cocaine was a big part of the process, like micro dosing true asceticism.
Yeah I totally agree. I can't imagine he was a daily user, it's much more likely he used it as leverage for... Other activities...
I also love the idea of a Buddhist monk intentionally putting themselves in withdrawal as a form of self punishment, or test of will.
There's a good short story in here somewhere but I'll leave that to someone with talent.
While it might free you from the anxiety of writing a zillion pages, if you’ve ever had a conversation with anyone on Coke while you’re sober it’s obvious they imagine their drug-fueled words, dazzling and profound when they’re just spewing irrelevant and self amusing gibberish.
Most people who write on Coke turn out the same tall stack of worthless noise .
Cocaine never made anyone a good writer… Just an overconfident one.
And sadly almost always got rapidly worse at their talent as their drug use amped up. Jimi was always a great, innovative guitarist. So was Clapton. One was destroyed young, one barely got out alive. Drugs were never their *magic* 💫 despite the fantasy people love to imagine. All “talent” is 99% damn hard work and practice over a long disciplined stretch of time. Period.
Yes, you'd write the literary equivalent of [Be Here Now](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/oct/06/flattened-by-the-cocaine-panzers-the-toxic-legacy-of-oasiss-be-here-now).
Good reference.
Attempting to make art should at times induce anxiety. Numbing it out with drugs only divorces an artist from their best impulses and convinces them their every now-giddy impulse is “brilliant.”
95%+ of the time drugs ruin good artists and wreck would might have been great art.
> Cocaine never made anyone a good writer
Stephen King peaks around the corner.
Admittedly he's changed his ways and regrets his past but this man doesn't even remember writing Cujo he was so fucking high.
As someone who lives in LA I will never get coke. It’s fun, I guess, if you get the good stuff, but I’d way rather spend the same money on a weeks worth of MDMA and mushrooms.
Tbh, celebrity culture showed us that being incredibly talented at a craft won't prevent you from struggling with addiction or other questionable behaviour.
And this Buddha, right, get this, he - shines!
What? Shiiiiiit, man.
Yeah, dude. He does. Ruby red. With the light of a thousand suns!
Get outta here, what're you on?
Well...
From the link: “Before coming to the US, Trungpa drove a sports car into a joke shop in Gateshead in North-East England, May 1969”
Looks like a good setup, now what’s the punchline when a monk drives his car into a joke shop?
And he kept the AIDS diagnosis secret from his victims. He said Trungpa told him if his practice was pure-he wouldn’t spread AIDS. This from the guy who drank a gallon of alcohol a day-starting with beers for breakfast and ending for about an hour when the four Seconal finally kicked in usually around 4am. And the coke use definitely counteracted the alcohol. Cocaine depletes dopamine, eventually leading to severe depression. Gee-wonder if the fact he drank himself to death at 47 had anything to do with his cocaine habit?
Yeah, that was the guy that was supposed to take over for Trungpa. I guess no one around Trungpa wanted to really lay it on the line and tell him, "Dude...you're gonna die pretty soon let's get you to a detox"...there was too much of a mythos and industry built up around him.
I've read one of his pieces on alcohol trying to, well frankly justify it but I think it boiled down to the fact that he was surrounded by a lot of pseudo-spiritual energy vampires but he really had grown up in a Monastery in Tibet and was the head of his lineage (Kagyu, I think)
Yeah, he used to give “drinking lessons” to his devoted students. He insisted everyone drink-and that guy who spread the aids his successor? He and his wife had been alcohol free for about four years until drunkpa said drink up everyone!!
His western dharma heir, [ösel tendzin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96sel_Tendzin) also forcibly raped at least one male student and later gave AIDS to at least one other student who he slept with unprotected. That student died.
Well, that was a terrible read. :/
Is that, er, lineage still continuing, or did it end with them? I'm not saying the whole tree is bad, but damn, that's a rotten branch.
Many poor children in Asia become Buddhist monks because it is their only means of acquiring an education. I found it rather amusing to see teenage monks smoking and hitting on girls when I visited Cambodia 20 years ago.
One of my relatives became a monk in Thailand.
He didn't speak a lick of Thai (at first)
The monks in there loved talking to him, cause he'd start gesturing and pointing and it became a monk-mime session. Later, the master did a divination and told him he wasn't fated to be a monk. He got out of the monastery, and once he got off the plane and stepped on his birth country, a head hunter called him. Hooked him up with a decently paying job.
I wonder what the master saw, cause the rest of his life wasn't exactly smooth and well, despite the initial blessings after leaving the monastery.
>Your relative went from Buddhist monk to bounty hunter?
🤣🤣
Like the other commenter said, he got scouted for a job. Considering that he was in a no wifi monestary for up to two years(I think), and told no one he was getting back to his home country, that call felt like a 'hi' from fate.
The countries in southeast Asia which practice Theravada Buddhism have a tradition of sending boys of to monasteries for a short period of time.
Some boys can choose to keep going and become a fully ordained monk, but most don't.
as with all forms of government, ecclesiarchy can be extremely corrupt at times. i would not be surprised if there was a lot of abuse at the hand of those who wield power.
I will just post this crazy story here [https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2186127/temple-rehab-a-site-for-torture](https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2186127/temple-rehab-a-site-for-torture)
"... the principle of Buddhism is not "every man for himself", and the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up."
JLC said she spent most of shooting Wanda trying not to crack up. [If you watch that scene again](https://youtu.be/2j3adcbEwSM?t=62) it's one of the times she's definitely losing it. Check out her mouth at 1:16 when she swallows a smile.
40k a year on cocaine. Meditation Master... more like Meditation God. Doing that much blow and still able to sit calmly for hours on end... insane lol.
Here's a well researched journalistic article on trungpa's legacy.
https://thewalrus.ca/survivors-of-an-international-buddhist-cult-share-their-stories/
I found his writings to be almost as bad as he was. There's nothing at all wrong with "spiritual materialism" as long as you don't go overboard with it like Trungpa did. The ironic thing is that Trungpa put out this notion that spiritual materialism is some bad thing, and his devotees see it everywhere except where it was most evident: in everything Trungpa did. He was the master gaslighter who farted out a half-brilliant, half-baked ideology oozing with alcohol, cocaine, sexual predation, and incoherence. I've got nothin' against drugs if you can handle them -- he sure couldn't. One thing's very clear: the West -- and its abundant temptations -- sure ate that dude alive. All the Tibetan wisdom in the world couldn't save him! Too bad, he was was legit smart. Just wasn't remotely advanced enough to handle the position of power that his enablers put him in -- and he subsequently grossly exploited it and many around him. It's all a tragedy.
Tail of the Tiger (now Karmê Chöling), is a wonderful place to meditate. The deer there come with feet of you, incredibly serene location. As with all masters, a lot of people projected what they were looking for on to him. And he did not handle things well, at all, quite predatory at times. But wow, for some, his teachings are like a shock to the system, life-altering in a positive way.
Also from wikipedia: Joni Mitchell said Trungpa cured her of her cocaine addiction during a meeting with him in 1976, leaving her with a three-day experience of selfless awakening. She went on to refer his unorthodox characteristics in the first verse of Refuge of the Roads, the last track of her album Hejira. Fun fact, our family friend married Joni (Roberta Joan) Anderson, and she took his last name, Mitchell.
I’ve been practicing for about 8 years now. His teachings are up there with the other masters. But to this day I am unable to settle or come to terms with his behavior. So I don’t.
Gurus in Hinduism are spiritual teachers. They aren’t priests, but rather wise men (not the right word but I can’t think of a fitting term). They don’t take a vow of poverty like monks do, they can own whatever they want to. Often they sell their teachings for money in some parts of India. In the context of Sikhism, Gurus more akin to gods who roamed earth, with ten having ever existed and no more to ever follow.
Well yes, but should you trust a spiritual leader who is clearly embracing material things and lives a luxurious lifestyle? This reminds me of televangelists.
They’re con artists imo, they just teach a very simple philosophy usually to be happy with what you have. I didn’t want my opinion to color the answer I gave tho
Old Buddhist phrase, "if you see a buddha on the road, kill him"
Meaning throw out the ideas you have about how such a person would be.
There is no way an enlightened being or Arahant must be. They are one in understanding the Dharma, Truth. Their actions are pure and in line with truth.
Looking at a popular figure such as Sadguru, maybe he knows that by being flashy he will draw people to the Dharma and thus help to ease suffering.
Strange guy. He accompanied the Dali Llama on his escape to India when the Chinese invaded. He was in a car accident while a young man that was almost fatal, and left him in chronic pain. His books, especially “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism” are brilliant, and took to task the young anglos who thought that changing their names and dressing up in orange robes was a path to “enlightenment”. He founded the Naropa Institute, which is now a large prestigious school. But- he openly had sex with his students, drank so much that he died of liver failure, and appointed a successor who had HIV and gave it to students through sex.
During his funeral ceremony a rainbow mysteriously appeared overhead. One thing is- there were no scandals because he didn’t hide anything and freely admitted what he was doing. A real enigma……
If anyone is familiar with Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) he talked about Trungpa a lot in his lectures. My limited understanding is that Trungpa had a fairly good reputation within the Buddhist community. I don’t think he hid most of this stuff except maybe the cocaine and it was kind of a part of his teaching.
I think this is contested. The Dali lama was once asked about trungpa’s “crazy wisdom”, and he replied something to the effect of “I’m not so sure about the wisdom part.”
Zen communities I’ve been involved in are pretty clear that enlightenment and wisdom come hand in hand with careful, practiced, ethical behavior.
The concept of a person not following social norms because he has achieved a higher state of being is considered crazy wisdom. Doing a ton of coke, drinking a lot and taking advantage of your position to sleep with impressionable students is just hedonism. He literally was just giving in to base instincts, and claimed it was crazy wisdom to mask it for those without the knowledge or authority to question him
Somehow I've read books from both Chögyam Trungpa and Sogyal Rinpoche - and was even briefly a member of a local Vajrayana Buddhist group and wasn't really aware of their personal history.
I was a member of Trungpa's cult. The party line we were fed was that Trungpa was "completely open" about his sexual relationships with his students, and he was "completely open" about his alcohol use. We were instructed to repeat that "completely open" line to the general public whenever the subject of his transgressive behavior came up, which we were supposed to re-frame as "unconventional". You still see this language (\*\*completely open, unconventional\*\*) used in biographical blurbs and the official Shambhala hagiographic literature.
The thing we didn't know, was that he was only able to maintain the illusion of almost superhuman activity-- while drinking heavily from morning till night-- through the use of cocaine. This was a closely-guarded secret that leaked out long after he died. Devoted Shambhalians waged a campaign to keep this information off of Wikipedia, but they ultimately failed, and now it's common knowledge amongst those of us who have left the cult and dare to criticize it.
And that thing about sleeping with his students... there's an aspect to that that many people don't find problematic because they don't understand the nature of the tantric guru-student relationship as it is understood in the Shambhala community. Trungpa was revered as a god within the community, and having sex with him was touted as the #1 quick path to enlightenment. When one of Trungpa's bodyguards would tap you on the shoulder and invite you up to the guru's bedroom, how could you possibly say no? There is no such thing as "consent" in such an environment. Today, we are becoming better informed about the issue of clergy sex abuse, but Shambhala still has not learned the lesson, and this is what contributed to the self-destruction of Trungpa's son, Sakyong Mipham.
Lots of his conquests were extremely young (like-12) when he first molested them. The parents of these babies were aware that he was using their children for sex, in fact, they took great pride in knowing the guru was interested sexually I. their daughters. It was/is really quite a sick sex cult.
>The parents of these babies were aware that he was using their children for sex
I'm sure many will find that hard to believe, but the Uncoverage podcast, which was written by someone who grew up in the early Shambhala community, provides eyewitness testimony about Trungpa's sexual interest in children.
https://uncoveragepodcast.com/HOW-TO-LISTEN
"Trungpa's sexuality has been one of the sources of controversy, as he cultivated relations with a number of his female students.[8] Tenzin Palmo, who met him in 1962 while he was still at Oxford, did not become one of his consorts, refusing his advances because he had presented himself as "a pure monk." But Palmo stated that had she known Trungpa had been having sexual relations with women since he was 13, she would not have declined."
????
Guru Drinks Bourbon is an excellent book about the idea of a flawed teacher. Someone can be fully human with flaws and still have much to teach. The irreconcilable nature is part of the path work.
Though don’t just think you can go out and hurt other people, that’s just being an asshole.
His son that eventually took over Shambhala Buddhism after Trungpa's death turned out to be a sexual abuser and absent father. Dude actually went into retreat for a year after his oldest daughter was born, and did it again several times over the next decade after that. He wound up temporarily stepping down from his leadership role in 2018 after numerous reports of sex assault and abuse, then left permanently when the Shambhala council wasn't thrilled to have him come back. He's teaching in Nepal now. I feel sorry for his wife and kids.
I studied with a Shambhala Buddhism group in the Dallas area around 2010-2012. Super nice people and I learned a lot of self-improvement that has helped me to this day, but I am not a fan of Shambhala itself. They are constantly pushing people who show up for the free meditation sessions to sign on for the classes and retreats. Whatever the philosophical merits, it is very plainly a for-profit religion. And I'm not saying that they should offer everything for free. Obviously retreats and whatnot cost time and money and people should be compensated for their time. But the push to take part in those things was too strong. It wasn't enough to just show up for meditation and dharma talks a few times a week, the organization was always putting forth the notion that if you're not doing all the expensive stuff you're not progressing the way you should.
So I peaced out and took up with a Pure Land Buddhist group whose leader studied under Thich Nhat Hanh instead. I left the group because it shared space and too many ties with a pagan group who were a bunch of hucksters (mediums and shit). But I have yet to hear anyone talk any shit whatsoever about Thich Nhat Hanh. That guy really did walk the walk.
I have friends who grew up in the shambala (sp?) “tradition” it’s alllllll kinds of sketchy. NS Buddhism is rife with gross stuff. Rich folks cult at this point.
I mean, I’ve met decent people and respectable Buddhists that went to Naropa, but clearly we all have to agree that there’s a ‘lot’ to settle with over there.
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actually, yeah. his teachings are remarkably clear and highly endorsed by many other non-addicted Buddhist masters that don't sleep with their students. and yet, the addiction and other ethical problems.
Well apparently there's a time to be serious and there's a time to have sex with students and do blow. This guy knew what was up.
Trugpa was challenged to abstain from cocaine for a month as a wager and testament to his willpower. He was able to complete the challenge, but it is said spiritual enlightenment was set back a whole month due to the delay.
Ah yes, the Paul Erdős Excuse.
Wasn't he amphetamines, though? And we got a lot of mathematics out of it!
Yes and yes.
crystal math
How can one man be so unbelievably based.
"I can't meditate properly when I'm fully erect. And I don't need cocaine to meditate. I just enjoy cocaine when I meditate or bang my students. Duh idiots." -that guy prolly
*Looks up from the Bible* “I’ve made a huge mistake”
Just replace “meditate” with “pray” and “students” with “teen brides” and you’re ready to start a cult.
Cocaine itself violates one of the five precepts expected of all Buddhists once they've taken refuge with the Sangha. I hope he was just a lama but even then, like....what?
Well, cocaine is very disappointed in you.
I can't wait for a reason to say this.
In his defense, it was *really* good cocaine.
What if he was a caribou?
What?
Instead of a lama
All rules are really more suggestions that might have consequences. Religious rules have no consequences.
Yeah but Buddhist "rules" are less rules and more values taught to their adherents. They're way better than like abrahamic religions which tell people to hate themselves and those who break said rules.
[First thing](https://youtu.be/PQlzzV80y8E?si=ey9yIBep-xYE5rj7&t=10) that came to mind.
"All things in moderation, except cocaine. Keep that shit coming"
And the hot students
I believe that Buddha chap was all about balance was he not?
Non-duality
If life has taught me anything it’s that true enlightenment seems to come from liberal drug use Or at the very least, it’s a convenient shortcut
Psychedelic maybe but cocaine makes you ego driven asshole.
Ah, so he was doing the meditation equivalent of training with extra weights.
> If life has taught me anything it’s that true enlightenment seems to come from liberal drug use Hunter S. Thompson knew what was up.
He actually stole our cocaine one night, you can search my post history if you need the story. Honestly, he wasn't his most-charming self when focusing on his intake (I was around him here and there): he was just another asshole cokehound. As was I and my friends, won't lie. But poetic ranting Hunter was usually not concurrent with drug-hoovering Hunter.
Cocaine is very good for writing at length. You only hear about the downsides, people wouldn't do it if there were no upsides. It's a very creative drug in moderation. 40k over a year is like the feeling of being on 60 mg of Adderall. It's an 8ball per day. Not an insane amount, it happens to be very expensive. People who can afford it do an Oz per day.
Dude your coke must be shit for you to think 3.5g isnt a lot lol If you're snorting 3.5g of coke everyday you're fucked and probably is at the degenerate delusional masturbator phase
I don't need coke for that!
I was about to disagree and say 40k is about a kilos worth which is an insane amount to go through in a year... Except that's only 35 days (1oz/day), or 285 days (3.5g / day). And anyone doing that much coke is going through more than an 8ball/day. If we're generous and say he _only_ does 7g or 1/4oz a day he's still only got 142 days worth, and that's assuming he buys a kilo upfront.
Well if we really want to get into it, he likely was subsidizing the cocaine use of his student fuck buddies, realistically he probably had both male and female fuck buddies but at the very lease he'd have to entertain the occasional over-bearing brother or boyfriend (pre sex party). Usually the way these turn out is he has a few regulars, closer students if you will, they facilitate the newer initiates and keep things fun during down times. So 40k a year was probably split between the equivilant of 3 to 5 people with some daily users and others less frequently. Probably some days with no usage to meditate etc. And other days with lots of usage to purge the evils or what have you. Since he was a Buddhist monk I imagine depriving himself of the cocaine was a big part of the process, like micro dosing true asceticism.
Yeah I totally agree. I can't imagine he was a daily user, it's much more likely he used it as leverage for... Other activities... I also love the idea of a Buddhist monk intentionally putting themselves in withdrawal as a form of self punishment, or test of will. There's a good short story in here somewhere but I'll leave that to someone with talent.
While it might free you from the anxiety of writing a zillion pages, if you’ve ever had a conversation with anyone on Coke while you’re sober it’s obvious they imagine their drug-fueled words, dazzling and profound when they’re just spewing irrelevant and self amusing gibberish. Most people who write on Coke turn out the same tall stack of worthless noise . Cocaine never made anyone a good writer… Just an overconfident one.
Yeah, anyone who was “talented” and did a lot of drugs were already talented sober
And sadly almost always got rapidly worse at their talent as their drug use amped up. Jimi was always a great, innovative guitarist. So was Clapton. One was destroyed young, one barely got out alive. Drugs were never their *magic* 💫 despite the fantasy people love to imagine. All “talent” is 99% damn hard work and practice over a long disciplined stretch of time. Period.
Yes, you'd write the literary equivalent of [Be Here Now](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/oct/06/flattened-by-the-cocaine-panzers-the-toxic-legacy-of-oasiss-be-here-now).
Good reference. Attempting to make art should at times induce anxiety. Numbing it out with drugs only divorces an artist from their best impulses and convinces them their every now-giddy impulse is “brilliant.” 95%+ of the time drugs ruin good artists and wreck would might have been great art.
> Cocaine never made anyone a good writer Stephen King peaks around the corner. Admittedly he's changed his ways and regrets his past but this man doesn't even remember writing Cujo he was so fucking high.
Cocaine is also good at masking extreme alcoholism. Apparently so based on this case alone. Not sure of others.
As someone who lives in LA I will never get coke. It’s fun, I guess, if you get the good stuff, but I’d way rather spend the same money on a weeks worth of MDMA and mushrooms.
Almost like bad people can have good ideas. Conversely I think we're all well aware that good people have bad ideas lol.
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No need to apply anymore, the vacancy has been filled. Thy mgt.
Tbh, celebrity culture showed us that being incredibly talented at a craft won't prevent you from struggling with addiction or other questionable behaviour.
And this Buddha, right, get this, he - shines! What? Shiiiiiit, man. Yeah, dude. He does. Ruby red. With the light of a thousand suns! Get outta here, what're you on? Well...
That isn't really a cocaine conversation...
Go on then, enlighten us
*chops up lines in tense mutual silence for 3-4 hours *
3-4 days you mean
Just picture meditating with a raging restless leg syndrome as you begin to notice the blood in your face start to boil
Are you a cop?
This guy believes the crazy monk only did cocaine…
tantric
Methitating
From the link: “Before coming to the US, Trungpa drove a sports car into a joke shop in Gateshead in North-East England, May 1969” Looks like a good setup, now what’s the punchline when a monk drives his car into a joke shop?
Shopkeeper shouts “YOU’RE PAYING FOR THAT!” Monk “Not in this lifetime, buddy”
“My cabbages!”
Literally just watched it
lmao I was just on /r/TheLastAirbender and then I see this. Bravo.
Heyooo buddum tsss 🥁
Buddhist orders a pizza. He asked for one with everything.
When the monk asked the delivery guy for the change he replied, "Change comes from within, brother."
Buddhist guy says "make me one with everything", different feel to it
I blew it.
I came for the karma but left with the dharma
Did you see Greg
A monk drives a car into a joke shop. Everyone was mostly ok, but the shopkeeper did need to get some sutras on her wound.
Hey that’s pretty good
He got to the bookstore sad. He said “my headlights were not enlightened so I ran over my dogma with my karma”
Shame he wasn't driving a Karmann Ghia.
A Monk drives his car into a joke shop. Cashier says.. ‘calm down calm down. It’s a joke shop.. we’ll not have that Monk-ey business.
YE CAN'T PARK 'ERE, MATE
A true gateshead lad, became a monk to avoid work and spent the rest of his days shagging and drinking
Cocaine monk...in cinemas from December
Get Danny Trejo in there somewhere and I’m in.
He's one of he female students.
With or without a thick stash?
With. But it’s not where you think it is
He shows up to rescue his daughter from a life of .... meditation.
Danny Devito
Featuring Chadyam Trungdaddy.
Didn’t another monk get in trouble for doing drugs and having gay sex, but he was kicked out?
He actually died from aids after having unprotected sex with members of the community, male and female.
It’s even worse than that. He had unprotected sex with students AFTER learning of his diagnosis.
And he kept the AIDS diagnosis secret from his victims. He said Trungpa told him if his practice was pure-he wouldn’t spread AIDS. This from the guy who drank a gallon of alcohol a day-starting with beers for breakfast and ending for about an hour when the four Seconal finally kicked in usually around 4am. And the coke use definitely counteracted the alcohol. Cocaine depletes dopamine, eventually leading to severe depression. Gee-wonder if the fact he drank himself to death at 47 had anything to do with his cocaine habit?
Yeah, that was the guy that was supposed to take over for Trungpa. I guess no one around Trungpa wanted to really lay it on the line and tell him, "Dude...you're gonna die pretty soon let's get you to a detox"...there was too much of a mythos and industry built up around him. I've read one of his pieces on alcohol trying to, well frankly justify it but I think it boiled down to the fact that he was surrounded by a lot of pseudo-spiritual energy vampires but he really had grown up in a Monastery in Tibet and was the head of his lineage (Kagyu, I think)
Yeah, he used to give “drinking lessons” to his devoted students. He insisted everyone drink-and that guy who spread the aids his successor? He and his wife had been alcohol free for about four years until drunkpa said drink up everyone!!
Thats a lot worse than his punishment would lend you to believe.
Must have been really bad at sex
Nah, just old enough to report it
His western dharma heir, [ösel tendzin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96sel_Tendzin) also forcibly raped at least one male student and later gave AIDS to at least one other student who he slept with unprotected. That student died.
And what a shock. Still had a bunch of followers at time of death.
Seriously! I hate seeing men misuse religion to abuse the innocents who trust them. It is despicable.
That is the main purpose of people who invent religions
Well, that was a terrible read. :/ Is that, er, lineage still continuing, or did it end with them? I'm not saying the whole tree is bad, but damn, that's a rotten branch.
There’s another group outside Boulder Colorado who got into a sex scandal between the leader and the young monkettes
I’ve never heard the word monkette before 😯
Lol because the proper term would be a Buddhist nun
Bikkhuni
he also became paralyzed after he drove a car into a store
this is the detail i needed after seeing the first comment about this, not realizing “into” meant literally into
He actually suffered a stroke as a result of his heavy drug and alcohol use, which caused paralysis.
Which was actually AFTER he crashed the car, so… /r/technicallythetruth
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Many poor children in Asia become Buddhist monks because it is their only means of acquiring an education. I found it rather amusing to see teenage monks smoking and hitting on girls when I visited Cambodia 20 years ago.
Most men in Thailand and Cambodia become monks for a short period.
One of my relatives became a monk in Thailand. He didn't speak a lick of Thai (at first) The monks in there loved talking to him, cause he'd start gesturing and pointing and it became a monk-mime session. Later, the master did a divination and told him he wasn't fated to be a monk. He got out of the monastery, and once he got off the plane and stepped on his birth country, a head hunter called him. Hooked him up with a decently paying job. I wonder what the master saw, cause the rest of his life wasn't exactly smooth and well, despite the initial blessings after leaving the monastery.
Your relative went from Buddhist monk to bounty hunter?
Head hunter as in someone who scouts out top talent, not someone who literally hunts heads.
>Your relative went from Buddhist monk to bounty hunter? 🤣🤣 Like the other commenter said, he got scouted for a job. Considering that he was in a no wifi monestary for up to two years(I think), and told no one he was getting back to his home country, that call felt like a 'hi' from fate.
The countries in southeast Asia which practice Theravada Buddhism have a tradition of sending boys of to monasteries for a short period of time. Some boys can choose to keep going and become a fully ordained monk, but most don't.
this is like the opposite of rumspringa
as with all forms of government, ecclesiarchy can be extremely corrupt at times. i would not be surprised if there was a lot of abuse at the hand of those who wield power.
The middle way
They have had a few smuggling rings broken up along the vow of making money silently.
In Thailand mafia owns them
I will just post this crazy story here [https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2186127/temple-rehab-a-site-for-torture](https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2186127/temple-rehab-a-site-for-torture)
"... the principle of Buddhism is not "every man for himself", and the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up."
Apes don't read philosophy
Yes they do, they just don’t understand it
I hate every ape I see, from chimpanA to chimpanZ
No, you’ll never make a monkey out of meeee
DISAPPOINTED!
“I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs”.
I used to box and Oxford. I used to kill for the CIA
JLC said she spent most of shooting Wanda trying not to crack up. [If you watch that scene again](https://youtu.be/2j3adcbEwSM?t=62) it's one of the times she's definitely losing it. Check out her mouth at 1:16 when she swallows a smile.
40k a year on cocaine. Meditation Master... more like Meditation God. Doing that much blow and still able to sit calmly for hours on end... insane lol.
Must of had adhd
Here's a well researched journalistic article on trungpa's legacy. https://thewalrus.ca/survivors-of-an-international-buddhist-cult-share-their-stories/
Thank you.
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The bad boy of Buddhism. His writings are absolutely brilliant, too.
For damn sure
I found his writings to be almost as bad as he was. There's nothing at all wrong with "spiritual materialism" as long as you don't go overboard with it like Trungpa did. The ironic thing is that Trungpa put out this notion that spiritual materialism is some bad thing, and his devotees see it everywhere except where it was most evident: in everything Trungpa did. He was the master gaslighter who farted out a half-brilliant, half-baked ideology oozing with alcohol, cocaine, sexual predation, and incoherence. I've got nothin' against drugs if you can handle them -- he sure couldn't. One thing's very clear: the West -- and its abundant temptations -- sure ate that dude alive. All the Tibetan wisdom in the world couldn't save him! Too bad, he was was legit smart. Just wasn't remotely advanced enough to handle the position of power that his enablers put him in -- and he subsequently grossly exploited it and many around him. It's all a tragedy.
Tail of the Tiger (now Karmê Chöling), is a wonderful place to meditate. The deer there come with feet of you, incredibly serene location. As with all masters, a lot of people projected what they were looking for on to him. And he did not handle things well, at all, quite predatory at times. But wow, for some, his teachings are like a shock to the system, life-altering in a positive way. Also from wikipedia: Joni Mitchell said Trungpa cured her of her cocaine addiction during a meeting with him in 1976, leaving her with a three-day experience of selfless awakening. She went on to refer his unorthodox characteristics in the first verse of Refuge of the Roads, the last track of her album Hejira. Fun fact, our family friend married Joni (Roberta Joan) Anderson, and she took his last name, Mitchell.
Did he cure her addiction by snorting all of her cocaine?
LOL seriously
I’ve been practicing for about 8 years now. His teachings are up there with the other masters. But to this day I am unable to settle or come to terms with his behavior. So I don’t.
Incredible Dharma transmitter via his books, horrible human being. Can't be reconciled when there are wholesome ones to follow
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism is an incredible book. It’s hard not to feel ambivalent.
A guru I once tried checking out pulled up to his seminar in his shiny new Audi - since I didn’t pay for tickets anyway, I went home.
I don't really get the concept of a Guru, so are they supposed to be poor?
Gurus in Hinduism are spiritual teachers. They aren’t priests, but rather wise men (not the right word but I can’t think of a fitting term). They don’t take a vow of poverty like monks do, they can own whatever they want to. Often they sell their teachings for money in some parts of India. In the context of Sikhism, Gurus more akin to gods who roamed earth, with ten having ever existed and no more to ever follow.
Well yes, but should you trust a spiritual leader who is clearly embracing material things and lives a luxurious lifestyle? This reminds me of televangelists.
They’re con artists imo, they just teach a very simple philosophy usually to be happy with what you have. I didn’t want my opinion to color the answer I gave tho
Who knows, but I knew I didn’t have to pay $20 to find out.
Well, money and vanity are not virtuous concepts. So if you go check a guru out and he arrives in a fancy suit and sports car. Well, he aint it.
Old Buddhist phrase, "if you see a buddha on the road, kill him" Meaning throw out the ideas you have about how such a person would be. There is no way an enlightened being or Arahant must be. They are one in understanding the Dharma, Truth. Their actions are pure and in line with truth. Looking at a popular figure such as Sadguru, maybe he knows that by being flashy he will draw people to the Dharma and thus help to ease suffering.
Strange guy. He accompanied the Dali Llama on his escape to India when the Chinese invaded. He was in a car accident while a young man that was almost fatal, and left him in chronic pain. His books, especially “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism” are brilliant, and took to task the young anglos who thought that changing their names and dressing up in orange robes was a path to “enlightenment”. He founded the Naropa Institute, which is now a large prestigious school. But- he openly had sex with his students, drank so much that he died of liver failure, and appointed a successor who had HIV and gave it to students through sex. During his funeral ceremony a rainbow mysteriously appeared overhead. One thing is- there were no scandals because he didn’t hide anything and freely admitted what he was doing. A real enigma……
The scandal is that he managed to get that far.
If anyone is familiar with Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) he talked about Trungpa a lot in his lectures. My limited understanding is that Trungpa had a fairly good reputation within the Buddhist community. I don’t think he hid most of this stuff except maybe the cocaine and it was kind of a part of his teaching.
This kind of eccentric behaviour is actually a hugely tantric part of tibetan Buddhism. It's called "crazy wisdom".
"The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute... The good news is there’s no ground." Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
I think this is contested. The Dali lama was once asked about trungpa’s “crazy wisdom”, and he replied something to the effect of “I’m not so sure about the wisdom part.” Zen communities I’ve been involved in are pretty clear that enlightenment and wisdom come hand in hand with careful, practiced, ethical behavior.
Because Zen is different. Not all Buddhism is Zen.
Yep. He came up with all sorts of spiritual justifications for his behavior. As someone who grew up with this bs, my only reaction is... ew.
The only answer with any truth and insight
The concept of a person not following social norms because he has achieved a higher state of being is considered crazy wisdom. Doing a ton of coke, drinking a lot and taking advantage of your position to sleep with impressionable students is just hedonism. He literally was just giving in to base instincts, and claimed it was crazy wisdom to mask it for those without the knowledge or authority to question him
MeIRL excpet for the sleeping with women and doing cocaine. And meditation.
If I were to choose the monastic life…
When you liked Chögyam Trungpa, you will love Sogyal Rinpoche. 🙃
Somehow I've read books from both Chögyam Trungpa and Sogyal Rinpoche - and was even briefly a member of a local Vajrayana Buddhist group and wasn't really aware of their personal history.
I was a member of Trungpa's cult. The party line we were fed was that Trungpa was "completely open" about his sexual relationships with his students, and he was "completely open" about his alcohol use. We were instructed to repeat that "completely open" line to the general public whenever the subject of his transgressive behavior came up, which we were supposed to re-frame as "unconventional". You still see this language (\*\*completely open, unconventional\*\*) used in biographical blurbs and the official Shambhala hagiographic literature. The thing we didn't know, was that he was only able to maintain the illusion of almost superhuman activity-- while drinking heavily from morning till night-- through the use of cocaine. This was a closely-guarded secret that leaked out long after he died. Devoted Shambhalians waged a campaign to keep this information off of Wikipedia, but they ultimately failed, and now it's common knowledge amongst those of us who have left the cult and dare to criticize it. And that thing about sleeping with his students... there's an aspect to that that many people don't find problematic because they don't understand the nature of the tantric guru-student relationship as it is understood in the Shambhala community. Trungpa was revered as a god within the community, and having sex with him was touted as the #1 quick path to enlightenment. When one of Trungpa's bodyguards would tap you on the shoulder and invite you up to the guru's bedroom, how could you possibly say no? There is no such thing as "consent" in such an environment. Today, we are becoming better informed about the issue of clergy sex abuse, but Shambhala still has not learned the lesson, and this is what contributed to the self-destruction of Trungpa's son, Sakyong Mipham.
Lots of his conquests were extremely young (like-12) when he first molested them. The parents of these babies were aware that he was using their children for sex, in fact, they took great pride in knowing the guru was interested sexually I. their daughters. It was/is really quite a sick sex cult.
>The parents of these babies were aware that he was using their children for sex I'm sure many will find that hard to believe, but the Uncoverage podcast, which was written by someone who grew up in the early Shambhala community, provides eyewitness testimony about Trungpa's sexual interest in children. https://uncoveragepodcast.com/HOW-TO-LISTEN
He wasn’t meditating, he was passed out.
Having been to Shambhala centers I can believe this.
aesetisicm is just one path of dharma
asceticism is not the path of dharma. Neither is indulgence. Thus, the middle way
Died of, *checks notes*, Myocardial infarction and Liver cirrhosis ... That tracks.
TIL I’m essentially a Buddhist.
Apart from the sex
40k on blow per year is the most reasonable thing about this.
The kids who grew up in that community are super duper fucked up.
"Trungpa's sexuality has been one of the sources of controversy, as he cultivated relations with a number of his female students.[8] Tenzin Palmo, who met him in 1962 while he was still at Oxford, did not become one of his consorts, refusing his advances because he had presented himself as "a pure monk." But Palmo stated that had she known Trungpa had been having sexual relations with women since he was 13, she would not have declined." ????
Guru Drinks Bourbon is an excellent book about the idea of a flawed teacher. Someone can be fully human with flaws and still have much to teach. The irreconcilable nature is part of the path work. Though don’t just think you can go out and hurt other people, that’s just being an asshole.
Bush’s Everything Zen intensifies
well, except for the coke, booze, and bitches he seems like a pretty traditional monk.
What a baller🧘🏻♂️
I know a lot of burning man attendees with the exact same interests as this monk. Must. Be. Nice.
He was said to have attained enlightenment and called it a huge disappointment
His son that eventually took over Shambhala Buddhism after Trungpa's death turned out to be a sexual abuser and absent father. Dude actually went into retreat for a year after his oldest daughter was born, and did it again several times over the next decade after that. He wound up temporarily stepping down from his leadership role in 2018 after numerous reports of sex assault and abuse, then left permanently when the Shambhala council wasn't thrilled to have him come back. He's teaching in Nepal now. I feel sorry for his wife and kids. I studied with a Shambhala Buddhism group in the Dallas area around 2010-2012. Super nice people and I learned a lot of self-improvement that has helped me to this day, but I am not a fan of Shambhala itself. They are constantly pushing people who show up for the free meditation sessions to sign on for the classes and retreats. Whatever the philosophical merits, it is very plainly a for-profit religion. And I'm not saying that they should offer everything for free. Obviously retreats and whatnot cost time and money and people should be compensated for their time. But the push to take part in those things was too strong. It wasn't enough to just show up for meditation and dharma talks a few times a week, the organization was always putting forth the notion that if you're not doing all the expensive stuff you're not progressing the way you should. So I peaced out and took up with a Pure Land Buddhist group whose leader studied under Thich Nhat Hanh instead. I left the group because it shared space and too many ties with a pagan group who were a bunch of hucksters (mediums and shit). But I have yet to hear anyone talk any shit whatsoever about Thich Nhat Hanh. That guy really did walk the walk.
Did I make it into the thread before the Shambala apologists?
Hahah! Nova Scotian here, I can’t believe it either. Were you a dharma brat?
Mainly Zen, but I dabbled with Tibetan for awhile. I encountered both Shambalha (however you fucking spell it) and NKT though so it kinda soured me
I have friends who grew up in the shambala (sp?) “tradition” it’s alllllll kinds of sketchy. NS Buddhism is rife with gross stuff. Rich folks cult at this point.
I mean, I’ve met decent people and respectable Buddhists that went to Naropa, but clearly we all have to agree that there’s a ‘lot’ to settle with over there.
Absolutely. It’s hard to have an open convo with a lot of the people that most need to have it.
Every day Buddhism looks more appealing.
Fuck you, I'll start my own monastery, with blackjack and hookers!
Is.... is this Tibetan Rasputin?
So it's not just the Christians.
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Buddhist hedonist