Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, by Chögyam Trungpa is a book addressing many common pitfalls of self-deception in seeking spirituality, which the. Spiritual materialism is a phrase originally coined by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche that he used to describe the grasping after material accomplishment within. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. By Chögyam Trungpa. If Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche had written no more than the title of this book, it would have been.

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Thus, in taking the context out of the teaching in the form of a book, the issues I find troublesome at least, for me are more or less bound to happen. It is not as simple and easy as we might think. It is the most insignificant thing of all, complete openness, the absence of any kind of collection or evaluation. He concludes the book with a chapter on the Tantric teaching of the Five Buddha Families. On the other hand, the lecturer could have made his argument much clearer had he just presented the main idea of his argument in each lecture, which he then backed up with metaphors to describe the process he is discussing.

Rather it refers to the neurotic preoccupation that drives us to create them, to try to control nature. And yet there is always the creative quality of the spirit- ual friend which also becomes a part of us.

How do you take off your suit of armor? This is the true meaning of abhisheka, initiation. Both the shrine materialosm Naropa contained tremendous spiritual energy and power, and Naropa asked Marpa to which one he would prostrate in order to experience the sudden realization of enlightenment.

Indeed, he makes some wonderful points about flexibility and extracting wisdom and whatever is to be learned from any situation or person, regardless of how one may be disposed to categorize or objectify said people or situations.

The ego is relentless in tricking us into it’s games and putting too much emphasis into practice is simply another form of ego.

But then he turns around and dismisses approaches outside of his idiosyncratic emotional transmission. Have you accepted any spiritual master as a guru, any chogyqm living spiritual master?

We will try to swallow it back, try to struggle with our illness. There could be a demonic quality in realizing what we are. Materialism in this text is not described so much as a thing but more often an attitude, such as, she GOT enlightened. In Buddhist thought, this sense of self is illusory; the self is a process, not a thing. From this point on you see a tremendous change of style in Milare- pa’s songs, because he had learned to identify with the uni- versal quality of guru, dutting than solely relating to Marpa as an individual person.

He cannot even see our faces properly.

Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

We begin to wonder: In an individual’s mind, it works out very neatly that way, ego being both king and head of the church. There is a Zen expression: It isn’t enough to receive the teachings in a theoretical way.

A; The teaching just happened. It is not cuttinng because your faith and yourself have never made any connection, any com- munication. They tried to preserve that experi- ence, but as time went on it became just a memory, words and ideas which they repeated to themselves. There is no time to think about it; it just happens.

Mar 29, Beverly Cooper rated it it was amazing. Of course Marpa is an example of the possibilities open to choggyam. So we have to make some effort to expose ourselves and our self-deceptions. He had to give up everything he had, not just his material possessions, but whatever he was holding back in his mind had to go.

Aro - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

Totally not the point, but fun. So it is not a matter of building up the awakened state of mind, but rather of burning out the confusions which obstruct it. Training one’s mind, body, and speech in accordance with the truth would bring about the understanding and wisdom that produces peace. Eventually Marpa found Naropa living in poverty in a simple house in the forests of Bengal.

Eventually the relationship begins to become very sub- stantial and solid. I would like to worshi] and join your greatness, so will you please protect me? True knowledge, in other words, is not transmissible through speech, but is the result of privileged state which only a few achieve.

Is there any way out of this? Trugpa book is a great reminder of the quite simple experience of just now. You not only feel conscious of your lover as the central focus of your attention, but you begin to notice his or her life-style as well. This is the whole point: Over and over and over again. If we become successful at maintaining our self-conscious- ness through spiritual techniques, then genuine spiritual de- velopment is highly unlikely.

He questioned why our minds follow them and whether there is another way. But Buddhism is uniquely vulnerable to exploitation in another way.