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Excerpts from The Art of Calligraphy: Joining Heaven and Earth (1994) During the twenty-year period of his teaching in the West, calligraphy was a primary means of expression for Chögyam Trungpa. The Art of Calligraphy showcases many of his brushworks—poems, seed syllables, and phrases as well as abstract images. Excerpts from The Art of Calligraphy featured in Volume Seven include the introduction by David I. Rome, as well as selected calligraphies by Trungpa Rinpoche. An essay titled “Heaven, Earth, and Man,” based on one of Trungpa Rinpoche’s “dharma art” workshops, is also included. Here he emphasizes what he called “art in everyday life”: the cool, peaceful expression of unconditional beauty that offers us the possibility of being able to relax enough to perceive the phenomenal world and our own senses properly. He goes on to show how the dynamic of heaven, earth, and man (the ancient Oriental hierarchy of the cosmos) is basic to any artistic endeavor—painting, building a city, or designing an airplane—as well as to perceiving the art that surrounds us. He also introduces the idea that “the discipline of art-making” can be used to organize and create a decent society.
Excerpts from Visual Dharma: The Buddhist Art of Tibet (1975) This work is the introductory essay to a catalog that accompanied an exhibit of Tibetan Buddhist art at the Hayden Gallery at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975. Here Chögyam Trungpa discusses traditional elements in Tibetan Buddhist iconography and how they are expressed in Tibetan Buddhist thangka paintings and rupas, or religious sculptures of important teachers and deities.Selected Poems This volume includes 168 poems, drawn primarily from First Thought Best Thought: 108 Poems and Timely Rain: Selected Poetry of Chögyam Trungpa, two collections edited by David I. Rome, Trungpa Rinpoche’s private secretary and close student-friend for many years. Other poems included in this volume first appeared in small press editions.Selected Writings In the preface to First Thought Best Thought (1983), Chögyam Trungpa discusses his encounter with Western poetry and his relationship with American poets.“Poets’ Colloquium” (1976) is a transcript from a gathering in 1975 that shows the free-wheeling and spirited discussion among Chögyam Trungpa, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, William Burroughs, W. S. Merwin, Philip Whalen, David Rome, and Joshua Zim. The discussion ranges over a variety of topics: why and how the poets write poetry, whether to take a typewriter into retreat with you, whether a poet writes for an audience, and whether a conscious death is possible. “Poetics” (1993) is based on a discussion among Chögyam Trungpa, Allen Ginsberg, and David Rome that took place in Ginsberg’s “Meditation and Poetics” course at Naropa Institute in 1978. Here Trungpa Rinpoche talks about using a threefold logic of ground, path, and fruition in writing poetry. “Tibetan Poetics” (1976) presents a 1975 conversation with Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, in which Chögyam Trungpa talks about the formal, classical style of Tibetan poetry in which he was trained and how it contrasts with the approach he adopted to writing poetry in English. “Visual Dharma: Film Workshop on the Tibetan Buddhist View of Aesthetics and Filmmaking” (1972) is based on a seminar on the application of Buddhist principles to filmmaking. Two plays by Chögyam Trungpa:
“Basic Sanity in Theater” (1980) is excerpted from a talk given by Chögyam Trungpa in 1973 about his view of theater and the notion of combining the bodhisattva and yogic practices in theater work. “Heaven, Earth, and Man” (1991) is a brief article on the heaven, earth, and man principles and how they connect with the Buddhist concept of the three kayas. It is accompanied by calligraphies that illustrate this point. “Perception and the Appreciation of Reality” (1984) is Chögyam Trungpa’s only known formal talk on the subject of ikebana, the contemplative practice of flower arranging. “Art of Simplicity: ‘Discovering Elegance’” (1988)
“Art and Education” (1979) is based on a public talk at the Naropa Institute in 1979. Here, Chögyam Trungpa describes how many of the principles of art that he articulated were reflected in and applied to the overall approach at Naropa. “Empowerment” (1976) is taken from the liner notes to an album presenting recordings of Tibetan sadhanas, or religious liturgies, performed by His Holiness the sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa during his first visit to America in 1974. Chögyam Trungpa talks about the significance of the ceremonies themselves as well as about the ritual instruments and music that are an integral part of the ceremonies. Introduction to Disciples of the Buddha (2001) is an in-depth interview with Chögyam Trungpa, conducted by Robert Newman and included in Newman's book by that title. Trungpa Rinpoche discusses the meditative realization that can be seen in the I-chou Lohans, Chinese statues of the disciples of the Buddha, which Trungpa felt were powerful expressions of the meditative state of mind. Appendices In the introduction to First Thought Best Thought by Allen Ginsberg (1983), Ginsberg offeres insight into Chögyam Trungpa’s poetry.The editor’s preface to First Thought Best Thought by David I. Rome (1983) includes recollections of the editor who was frequently the scribe who took down Chögyam Trungpa’s poetry as he spoke it aloud. The editor’s afterword to Timely Rain by David I. Rome (1983) looks at Chögyam Trungpa’s life and psychology through the lens of his poetry. |
