Chogyam Trungpa - The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa : Volume 9

Chgyam Trungpa at Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada, 1980.

PHOTOGRAPH BY LIZA MATTHEWS .

I T IS EARLY J UNE on Tatamagouche Mountain, as I sit here writing this introduction to volume nine of The Collected Works of Chgyam Trungpa. Purple and white lilacs and honeysuckle are in bloom in the front yard of Trident Mountain House, the place I have been coming to compile and edit the writings of Chgyam Trungpa for many years now. The house is just across the road from the land where the Dorje Kasung, known also as the Vajra Command Protectors (literally) or the Vajra Guardsthe security and service organization established by Chgyam Trungpa in the mid-1970shave been holding their summer encampment, the Magyal Pomra Encampment, for more than two decades.

About twenty-five years ago, my husband, James Gimian, was heading up the search for a land center for the Dorje Kasung in Nova Scotia. We would tear around the Nova Scotia countryside in an old Nissan sedan looking for suitable sites, with me often in the backseat entertaining our toddler, Jenny, with food, toys, and games. I referred to myself as the cosmic vending machine, a moniker that other parents may understand, especially as regards the challenges of car trips with young children.

After a number of people working on this project had made scouting trips to different parts of the province, we had zeroed in on the region around Tatamagouche as a likely area to find land. On one particular day, Jim and I were driving up and down dirt roads outside of town, and as our daughter got fussier and fussier, we got more and more irritated with one another, until we finally decided to stop somewhere for a little while, to have a break from the car. We pulled into the parking lot of the Willow Church, on Willow Church Road. We got out and walked around the empty field behind the church. Everyone relaxed. We looked at the view and felt the fresh air, and Jim said: You know, this would work. This could be the place! Then, we got back into the car and tore off down the road again. About a year later, the parcel of land that adjoins the Willow Church went up for sale, and the Kasung bought it. (A year or two after that, another nearby parcel was purchased, now the site of the Dorje Denma Ling practice center.) So now I sit across the road from where we first stopped that chaotic afternoon, composing my thoughts about Chgyam Trungpa and his extraordinary and prodigious teachings and equally extraordinary legacy.

Included in this volume are five books published between 2003 and 2009, a set of cards that present the Shambhala warrior slogans, and eighteen articles and interviews, all from 1983 or earlier. The first eight volumes of The Collected Works were organized thematically, but we made the decision to go more or less in chronological order from here on out. So the books in volumes nine and ten are presented in the order in which they were published. The selected writings that follow the books in volume nine are all from before Chgyam Trungpas death in 1987 and are roughly presented chronologically.

The first book that appears in volume nine is entitled True Command: The Teachings of the Dorje Kasung: Volume One: The Town Talks. It is based on talks given by Chgyam Trungpa to the members of the Dorje Kasung between 1975 and 1983. (It does not include talks at the Magyal Pomra Encampments, which someday will form the contents of the second volume of True Command.) In addition to Chgyam Trungpas addresses at various Kasung events, the volume includes remarks by others on these occasions, as well as descriptions of ceremonies that often formed the backdrop for his remarks. There is a lot of specialized language, or lingodepending on your point of viewthat was developed by Trungpa Rinpoche and those around him as he laid out the teachings and the path of warriorship central to the identity and conduct of the Vajra Guards.