A reader that Japhy follows on Google+ posted a photograph of Trungpa at a party which gave him a bit of a start when he saw it.
“This is a total projection on my part, it has absolutely no basis in reality, but I know the moment that this picture captured.”
It isn’t a picture of Trungpa so much as a snapshot of Trungpa at a party, totally shit faced, pointing at the camera.
“None of the other people are looking at either Trungpa or the photographer. There is a young man and a woman in the background, talking to each other behind Rinpoche.”
Japhy can’t see the face of the guy but judging from the haircut, hair off the collar, ears visible, the vibe is definitely late 1970′s.
“As for The young woman in the shot, her haircut, blouse and shorts are typical of the period too. She looks like the character, Donna, in That 70′s Show on Television.”
On the edge of the scene there is part of a guy sitting at a table wearing a tank top which screams disco era. This confirms for Japhy when the picture was taken.
“Trungpa’s loose shirt with tight jeans combo, that pretty much nails the time period for me. I know these people. I hated them.”
“Nobody is drinking in the picture but Trungpa is obviously shit faced among a group of relaxed but otherwise sober people.”
Japhy imagines that the guy at the table is rolling a joint, but this is unlikely, given Trungpa wasn’t a pot smoker. He was know to from upon weed.
“He preferred booze, but he isn’t holding a beverage, so he’s probably coked up with a little Seconal to take the edge off.”
At the time the coke and pills weren’t common knowledge, he kept it on the down low, but in retrospect, hindsight being 20/20, Japhy believes he can see it in Rinpoche, demeanor..
“He’s at cruise altitude, the seatbelt off, in his comfort zone, feeling no pain, but no means out of control. It was good to be Trungpa.”
Japhy was into weed and acid at the time. He would never have been caught dead in a tank top and tight jeans, or any of the people in the picture.
“I had just began shaving my head at the time. I lived in ragged plaid shirts, jeans with holes in them, and my army fatigue jacket. I was known for going barefoot at the time.”
The people in the snapshot would have avoided Japhy like the plague. He definitely wasn’t their kind of people.”
“I was totally too into my head for my own good, my sitting meditation at the time was all about pushing myself to sit longer. I was impossible to be around.”
For Japhy, if it didn’t hurt he wasn’t meditating. He was young, limber, and full of piss and vinegar.
“I was living in Carbondale, IL, an undergraduate at Southern Illinois University. All I knew of Buddhism was from what I had read of in books.”
If you had suggested to him at the time that this wasn’t sufficient, he knew there was more to being a Buddhist than he had read of, but he would have taken offense all the same if you went there with him.
“Today people can insult me, it happens all the time online, and I don’t give it a second thought. It took me ages to get to that point though.”
According to Dzogchen Ponlop we not only have to be who we are, but also where we are. Japhy would add, when we are too.
“Trungpa wasn’t only who he was, and where he was, but Rinpoche also when he was, totally. He nailed it perfectly.”
Japhy respects how Trungpa put himself out like he did for the Buddhist cause, trimmed his sails according to the seas he found himself upon.
“My Rinpoche, Khenpo Karthar, is my rock of Gibraltar, my true north, timeless, steady as can be, regardless of circumstance.”
Too each their own. From Khenpo Kartar’s perspective, as far as Rinpoche is concerned it’s all good. Japhy has never known Rinpoche to judge.”
“Trungpa was the total opposite in this regard. You always knew what Trungpa expected of you. Khenpo Karthar plays his cards closer to his vest by comparison.
Allen Ginsberg knew that Trungpa didn’t want him to smoke pot, yet Rinpoche’s driver would bring weed to his meetings Rinpoche.
“Trungpa had no problem with his driver and Ginsberg lighting up and enjoying their weed. He judged, but without getting hung up on the judgement.”
There is no daylight between Trungpa and Khenpo Karthar in this regard, in terms of the equality of all appearances. Both judged, but without turning their impressions into judgment.
“Trungpa was the head of an alternative religious cult located in Boulder, CO, a bossy father figure to thousands of devoted followers there. It was what it was though, just another circumstance.”
Khenpo Karthar was dispatched to America by Holiness the 16th Karmapa to represent his lineage here, a task from which he has never wavered from. This was his circumstance.
“Both Rinpoches flowed from the same source, both being from Kham, both with the same Khenpo Gangshar mind training flow which defined their Buddhism.”
Khenpo Karthar and Chogyam Trungpa actually knew each other in Tibet. They went their separate ways in India, but that was their circumstances and nothing more.
“Khenpo Karthar was interned by the Indian Government at Buxador. Trungpa was banging the Sakyong’s mum, a nun, while fleeing the Chinese.”
Trungpa was a monk, but also being a Tulku, and Tibetans being hypocrites in this regard, both Rinpoches were simply doing what was expected of them.
“As Western converts to Tibetan Buddhism, the Westerner in us can’t help but judge. Our challenge as Buddhists is to not get hung up on our judgment.”
After Trungpa’s Snowmass debacle Ginsberg freaked, became obsessed with countering the shit storm of bad publicity that came from it.”
“As far as Trungpa was concerned he felt no such need to justify what had happened or its effect on his reputation.”
Rinpoche was a cult leader, not a business man with a Buddhist franchise to protect. It was never about him though, as far as he was concerned, but what his circumstances called for.
“After Snowmass, it was obvious to Trungpa that the party was over, he knew that he couldn’t go on as a leader of an alternative religious cult in 1970′s Boulder, CO.”
Japhy is just riffing here and has to wrap this up. If you have anything to add to this picture, please do. Later.
How curious. Would you please post a link to the picture?
I’ll just repeat what Khenpo Karthar told me in a private interview when I asked. He said that Trungpa Rinpoche is a great teacher and added, you may think I’m just saying that for political reasons, but I’m not, that’s how it is.
Thanks for sharing this.
I think Trungpa drank a lot of alcohol for the same reason many elderly people drink too much. He suffered a lot of pain (after his car accident).
Trungpa was born in 1939. He was thirty years old in 1969. He was 40 years old in 1979.
I’m 54 years young. You may wish to revisit the whole Trungpa drank because he was elderly, just saying.
He was drunk when he drove his vehicle into a joke shop window. Thus, his alcoholism predated his accident.
I think he drank for the same reason many old people do: pain. I admit I could be wrong–maybe he just enjoyed it.
You aren’t going to walk back the age argument I see.
The same with the absurdity of arguing he drank to manage the pain of an injury he had not yet suffered.
You certainly know that repeating them won’t make them any more convincing to me.
I’m not saying that he lived to a ripe old age. I saw Trungpa walking very slowly to the stage like it was very hard and probably painful for him to walk. He gave an excellent dharma talk, so I don’t think he was drunk at the time. Anyway, I’m not looking for an argument; believe whatever you want.
Better to be shit faced than shit mouthed. Trungpa wrote a paper for his students and it circulated around Boulder, saying to not use cocaine, pills or weed, ….he said alcohol at least gave a hangover and made people sick.
Ps. To hate is not the Buddhist path.
If you have any questions to ask about Trungpa I will do my best to answer them.
It is a fact that Rinpoche was an alcoholic, abused painkillers, and had a massive cocaine habit.
As I stated, as a cult leader with thousands of adoring flowers, as their surrogate father, he dictated to them his wishes in all things, including what substances he deemed acceptable to abuse.
If you aren’t old enough to remember those days, this was how cult leaders operated. These were the circumstances which Rinpoche had to work with at that time.
In the aftermath of the Snowmass debacle, Trungpa correctly realized that his days as the leader of an alternative religious cult were over.
What matters here is how Rinpoche, as his circumstances changed, was able to move forward. If he had not, he never would have gone on to become the founder of Shambhala Buddha, his crowning achievement.
“he’s probably coked up”?
I was there. You were not there so you should keep your guesses to yourself and work with yourself. The problem is you.
Do you also talk like this to you television set?
I remember a few years ago when Wailon from Elephant Journal led a brief crusade to cleanse wikipedea of supposed
lies about Trungpas’s cocaine use. It was shocking news to me.
then because Shambalians had always boasted that all of Trungpas vices were public not private or hidden..I wonder who
had the responsibility to score for Rinpoche ?
Obviously it is a bald faced lie that Trungpa was an open book. Nobody, other than his coke and painkiller connection, knew of his addiction while he was alive.
Waylon Lewis, as a noble born of Shambhala Buddhism’s Kalapa Court, his mommy knew Rinpoche, no doubt has much to loose from anything that diminishes the charisma of the Trungpa legacy.
In a nutshell, he’s a shill for the Trungpa franchise. All that he is, is tied to the fate of Rinpoche’s brand. So it comes as no surprise that he used Elephant Journal to protect it.
Japhy:
Would you tell me please, what proof you have that Chogyam Trungpa, abused drugs. Did you ever see him? How do you know that he was drunk when he drove into the joke shop. I’m struggling to understand why someone as gifted as he was needed to abuse alcohol and drugs.
When you watch a television show do you question what you see?
It’s television. It’s fiction.
Yet, you read what I have written as something other than fiction.
Think about that.
This blog is no different than any other form of media in this regard.