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Excerpted from Shambhala Sun magazine (www.shambhalasun.com), May 2005 issue
In The Sanity We Are Born With, editor Carolyn Rose Gimian has arranged
and introduced a selection of lectures and essays that summarize Chögyam
Trungpa Rinpoche's presentation of Buddhist psychology to Westerners.
Trungpa Rinpoche was a pioneer in bringing Tibetan Buddhism to North
America and was well known for his unique grasp of the "Western mind."
While today the interface between Western psychology and Buddhism gets
plenty of ink, it's helpful to remember that when Trungpa Rinpoche
prepared these presentations, many of which were directed at psychologists
and health practitioners, he was imparting concepts and techniques that
were radically foreign. Perhaps the most obvious way in which the Buddhist
view differs from the Western psychological model is its presumption of
basic healthiness, the "sanity" of the title. Trungpa Rinpoche also found
it surprising that Western psychologists had little experience working
with their own minds, since that was at the heart of the training he had
received.
© Books in Brief, reviewed by Andrea McQuillin, Shambhala Sun,
May 2005. |
