Chogyam Trungpa

Chögyam Trungpa (1940–1987)—meditation master, teacher, and artist—founded Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, the first Buddhist-inspired university in North America; the Shambhala Training program; and an international association of meditation centers known as Shambhala International. He is the author of numerous books, including Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, and The Myth of Freedom.

Carolyn Rose Gimian

Carolyn Rose Gimian is a teacher of meditation, mindfulness, and Buddhism, as well as a writer, book editor, and archivist. She edited Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior in close cooperation with Chögyam Trungpa. After his death, she compiled and edited two additional books of his Shambhala teachings: Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala and Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery. She is also the editor of the ten-volume Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action, and many other volumes of his work.

Carolyn was the founding director of the Shambhala Archives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a major repository of Trungpa Rinpoche’s archival legacy, and she is the Executive Director of the Chögyam Trungpa Institute at Naropa University.

"Carolyn Gimian has accomplished a formidable task, boiling down the reflections on ‘karma’ of the ever wise and irascible Chögyam Trungpa. The Future Is Open, as in the title itself, sketches a path forward even as it candidly details our karmic dilemma. As always, Trungpa Rinpoche poses us a riddle, this one about the stuff of our lives—and, just perhaps, dangles a solution." —Daniel Goleman, author Emotional Intelligence and Force for Good: The Dalai Lama’s Vision for Our World

"Our deep urge to understand the ultimate truth often implicitly assumes we understand the relative truth. But beyond the failures of philosophers, at the most basic level we sentient beings constantly fail in our own pursuit of happiness. So it is of utmost importance to understand the relative truth, of which karma is the epitome. And who can explain that truth better than Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche—a master who was not only extraordinarily knowledgeable but was spiritually accomplished and understood the modern world like no one else. If you’re curious how karma works, read this book!" —Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, author of What Makes You Not a Buddhist