About Chögyam Trungpa and His Collected Works:
Chögyam Trungpa (1939 - 1987), a Tibetan meditation master, teacher, and artist is widely known as one of the pioneers in bringing Buddhism to the West. He was born in eastern Tibet and was identified as the eleventh descendent in the line of Trungpa tulkus (incarnations of teachers). At age 18, this scholar was Supreme Abbot of the Surmang Monasteries. He fled to India when the Chinese invaded his homeland in 1959. In 1963, Chögyam Trungpa traveled to England where he attended Oxford University as a Spaulding Fellow, studying Western philosophy, religion, art, and language. He established the first Tibetan Buddhist center in Scotland in 1967.

In 1970, he was invited to teach in the United States; he settled down in Boulder, Colorado. Over the years, he established over 100 meditation centers in America, Canada, and Europe. Trungpa Rinpoche set up Shambhala International in 1973 to coordinate the activities of these centers. He also founded Naropa Institute (now Naropa University), an innovative college that combines contemplative studies with a liberal arts curriculum. A secular program for meditation called Shambhala Training was established in 1976. In 1986, Trungpa Rinpoche moved the center of his activities from Boulder to Halifax, Canada, where he died the following year.

Carolyn Rose Gimian, editor of The Essential Chögyam Trungpa (1999), is the compiler and editor of The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa. In each of these eight volumes, she provides an overview of the material.

About This Volume:
This volume contains two of Chögyam Trungpa's most respected works. They were released during the 1970s when this Tibetan teacher was hitting high stride in his writing. Cutting through Spiritual Materialism (1973) demonstrates how the voracious ego is able to "convert everything to its own use" — even serious efforts at self-improvement. The Myth of Freedom and The Way of Meditation (1976) attacks the consensus view of freedom to satisfy desires and puts in its place the Tibetan view of working with the emotions, the open way, and meditation in action. In the Heart of The Buddha (1991) is a collection of talks, essays and seminars on the basic teachings of Buddhism in three parts — Personal Journey, Stages on the Path, and Working with Others. The varied selected writings demonstrate Chögyam Trungpa's eclectic interests and wide-ranging knowledge. Among these pieces are forewords to other books, an dialogue between Chögyam Trungpa and members of a hippie commune, and a critique of the popular Don Juan books by Carlos Castaneda.