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:
Volume Five contains some very thoughtful writings on the themes of lineage (which refers to the continuity and transmission of the awakened state of mind, handed down from teacher to disciple, beginning with the Buddha up until the present era) and devotion (the emotional attitude and experience of the student that make transmission and realization possible). Chögyam Trungpa salutes the teachers who meant the most to him; he also warns about the dangers of false gurus. In two seminars, he discusses "crazy wisdom," which is free from conventional thought and spontaneous in its unabashed outrageousness. Throughout his presentations in America, Chögyam Trungpa demonstrated this "wisdom gone beyond." Among the selected writings are several that stand out: two pieces on mantra, an interview on the practice of the four foundations, teachings on the tulku principle, and three essays on Milarepa.