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Psicolog?a budista: Reflexiones sobre el Abbidharma (Spanish Edition) by Ch?gyam Trungpa

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The Abhidharma is a collection of Buddhist scriptures that investigate the workings of the mind and the states of human consciousness. In this book, Ch?gyam Trungpa shows how an examination of the formation of the ego provides us with an opportunity to develop real intelligence. Trungpa also presents the practice of meditation as the means that enables us to see our psychological situation clearly and directly.

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

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About the author

Chögyam Trungpa

145 books815 followers
Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (Tibetan: ཆོས་ རྒྱམ་ དྲུང་པ་ Wylie: Chos rgyam Drung pa; also known as Dorje Dradul of Mukpo, Surmang Trungpa, after his monastery, or Chökyi Gyatso, of which Chögyam is an abbreviation) was a Buddhist meditation master, scholar, teacher, poet, and artist. He was the 11th descendent in the line of Trungpa tulkus of the Kagyü school of Tibetan Buddhism. He was also trained in the Nyingma tradition, the oldest of the four schools, and was an adherent of the rimay or "non-sectarian" movement within Tibetan Buddhism, which aspired to bring together and make available all the valuable teachings of the different schools, free of sectarian rivalry.

Trungpa was a significant figure in the dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism to the West, founding Naropa University and establishing the Shambhala Training method, a presentation of the Buddhadharma largely devoid of ethnic trappings. In 1963, he moved to England to study comparative religion, philosophy, and fine arts at Oxford University. During this time, he also studied Japanese flower arranging and received an instructors degree from the Sogetsu school of ikebana. In 1967, he moved to Scotland, where he founded the Samye Ling meditation centre.

Shortly thereafter, a variety of experiences—including a car accident that left him partially paralyzed on the left side of his body—led him to give up his monastic vows and work as a lay teacher. In 1969, he published Meditation in Action , the first of fourteen books on the spiritual path published during his lifetime. The following year he married Diana Pybus and moved to the United States, where he established his first North American meditation centre, Tail of the Tiger (now known as Karmê-Chöling) in Barnet, Vermont.

In 1986, he moved to Nova Scotia, Canada, where hundreds of his students had settled. That Autumn, after years of heavy alcohol use, he had a cardiac arrest, and he died of heart failure the following Spring. His legacy is carried on by his son, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, under the banner of Shambhala International and the Nalanda Translation Committee.

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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
Profile Image for Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs.
1,270 reviews18.5k followers
February 13, 2024
“CAN’T HEAR WITH THE WATERS OF. HITHER AND THITHERING WATERS OF.”
- James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

Joyce, as Marshall McLuhan wrote, was prescient. He SAW that one day Newspeak would overrun us, like that babbling reiterative River, Anna Livia Plurabelle.

Nowadays we can’t hear ourselves THINK in the endless hither and thithering - and twittering - Newspeak of the media.

Chogyam Trungpa has a quick antidote.

He says: when it seems society has trapped you in a narrow box, just go through the walls!

What he meant to say by that, is that the problem is that the inhumanity of the noise around us has petrified our OWN humanity!

It’s impossible, therefore, to “go through the walls” unless we MELT our rigid shells and become TRULY ALIVE again. And that’s a tall order. Newspeak blocks our way.

So we start at the beginning.

The beginning is Abhidharma - the brain’s machine language. Yep - just like in a computer. Except it’s not formless and void, like in that Creation story.

No, it’s the RAW MATERIAL of our thoughts and emotions.

But Trungpa reminds us that’s ALL it is. And just like before Bill Gates came along with MS-DOS, it’s nothing without our brains’ organized thoughts.

You know what else?

When Trungpa, an ordained Tibetan lama, escaped from the Communist Chinese invasion - by the skin of his teeth (read it all in his Born in Tibet) - he had NO exposure to sophisticated Western society.

Zilch. Nada. Zero.

So he wasn’t a soulless semi-nerd like the rest of us.

I know, we blame our parents or our conditioning for it all - but, fact is, as he so clearly saw back then as a human outsider - our walls really JUST AIN’T THERE!

We’re only driven to THINK they are.

We CAN be truly ourselves AND be a part of this crazy modern world at the same time...

If First, we just LET OURSELVES BE OURSELVES.

And Second, if we ORGANIZE our thoughts in a panoptic understanding of where our thoughts originate, and the REASON we think as we do.

In other words, MEANING is a precondition of BEING OURSELVES.

Know what else? Almost all our books are in the process of slowly melting the walls that separate us from ourselves - and that HURTS.

But it’s so true, that trite truism - no pain, no gain!

When you read, it’s having the effect of providing the antidote to media noise. The walls that are melting are really US.

Our reading and thinking are RE-HUMANIZING us.

On top of that, we are ALL different. RADICALLY Different.

You know, the behaviouristic conditioning of the media funnels us into Sameness. Regimes have tried all that in the past. It NEVER WORKS.

History proves that endlessly. People actually DO become human again! And they can do that, for starters, by READING.

Jacques Derrida even made up a new word for the current attempt at universal conformity, which seems so nefarious but is only one of an endless succession of ‘em: DIFFÉRANCE.

It’s a little joke.

Our constant modern conditioning shows us differences between people, but always DEFERS the intrinsic essences and value of those differences. That’s what TV does. It makes us all seem bland and the same.

We are channeled into meaningless “straight and narrow paths.”

They’re DRYING UP all Value in our lives.

But unlike the straight path that leads to the Truth, these paths lead to empty meaninglessness - until we eventually despair of being DIFFERENT.

We must see WHY and HOW we’re different.

So Trungpa restores the value to our differences which our media defers.

He shows us that Difference is psychologically embedded in our Lost nature.

It’s there inside us. We just have to feed it.

It’s like the old story of the two pets - one nasty and one good. Each one of us has ‘em in his or her heart.

And we ALL play favourites - that’s behaviouristically unavoidable.

So which pet gets fed the most in OUR lives?

You see, there’s no avoiding good and evil.

Behaviourism simply tries to saddle us with ugly, unsympathetic pets. Pets of annoyance, pettiness, and dull sameness.

So...

At the end of the day, which pets have WE fed? Pets of LIFE or pets of DEATH?

Think about it.

And you may COME TO LIFE AGAIN, in spite of the nasty critters and Newspeak around you.

Your books will SHOW YOU THE WAY.
27 reviews13 followers
September 10, 2007
A book on perception by Trugpa, a Tibetan lama and excellent writer. An ancient dharmic teaching on the five shandhas. Perception broken down into five stages: form/matter; sensation/feeling (simple positive/negative/neutral); perception/discrimination (names); karmic formations (baggage, associations); consciousness (the totality). A wonderful way to begin to look at things differently, literally, more subtly, more slowly. "The whole approach of Buddhism is oriented towards dealing with everyday life situations rather than just meditating in order to achieve enlightenment."
10.7k reviews35 followers
July 14, 2023
THE TIBETAN LAMA LOOKS AT CONSCIOUSNESS, AND RELATED ISSUES

The back cover of this 1975 book states, “The Abhidharma is a collection of Buddhist scriptures that investigate the workings of the mind and the states of human consciousness. In this book, Chögyam Trungpa discusses the development of go as it is explained in the Abhidharma. From the Buddhist perspective, the creation of ego is a neurotic process based on fundamental ignorance of our true situation. This book shows how an examination of the formation of the ego leads to a realization of confusion and also provides an opportunity to develop real intelligence. The practice of meditation is represented as the means that enables us to see our psychological situation clearly and directly.”

He wrote in the Introduction, “I have decided to present the abhidharma because I feel it is necessary in studying the Buddhist tradition to start from scratch, to begin at the beginning and present the pure, immaculate, genuine teaching. We have been doing that so far in terms of the practice of meditation and in terms of the theoretical understanding of the teaching as well… In getting back to the basic principles, there could be two approaches. Some people feel inclined to work purely on the intuitive or emotional level; others feel that approach is not fundamental enough and want to work on the scholarly or theoretical aspect. I would not say that these two ways conflict, but rather that they are two channels through which to approach the subject. What we are trying to do here is to neglect either the intellect nor the intuition, but to combine the two together.” (Pg. 1-2)

He continues, “Many modern psychologists have found that the discoveries and explanations of the Abhidharma coincide with their own recent discoveries and new ideas; as though a Abhidharma, which was taught 2,500 years ago, had been redeveloped in the modern idiom.” (Pg. 2)

He explains, “The abhidharma … is based on the point of view of egolessness. Then we talk about egolessness, that does not mean simply the absence of ego itself. It means also the absence of the projections of the ego. Egolessness comes more or less as a by-product of seeing the transitory, transparent nature of the world outside. Once we have dealt with the projections of the ego and seen their transitory and transparent nature, then ego has no reference point, nothing to relate to. So the notions of inside and outside are interdependent---ego began and its projections began. Ego managed to maintain its identity by means of its projections. When we are able to see the projections as nonsubstantial, ego becomes transparent correspondingly.” (Pg. 9)

He asserts, “Feeling involves the pretense that you are involved with somebody, but actually you are just beating your head against a wall. You constantly search further and further thinking you are going to get at something, but ultimately, still, you are beating your head against a wall. There is no answer to feeling’s search, no savior for it. That is why the buddhadharma is an atheistic teaching. We have to accept that ours is a lonely journey. Studying the second skandha of feeling can be extremely important in helping us to realize that the whole journey is made alone, independent of anybody else. Still we are trying to beat ourselves against something all the time.” (Pg. 22-23)

He says, “Perception is based on that which is manifested by form and feeling and that which is not manifested by them. These are the two basic qualities in perception. In the first case, something is manifested via the six sense organs. You perceive something and you relate to is, you hold onto certain senses and their perceptions, and then from there you relate with that content. This is the first touching and feeling process. Feeling is like a radiation radiating out. Within that radiation, perception takes place as the radiation begins to function as definite details of that and this.” (Pg. 31-32)

He states, “The study of samskara skandha can teach us that all phenomena of human psychology, whatever types of thought patterns occur, all have these good and bad and indifferent qualities. Therefore we cannot really define one thought pattern as being the only right kind---there is no such thing as absolute aggression or absolute passion or absolute ignorance. All of them have the slight tendency of the other types. The whole idea is that therefore one cannot just condemn one type and totally accept another, even if it is the spiritual virtuous type of thoughts. They are questionable as all the other kinds of thought are questionable. That is a very important thought---nothing is really to be condemned or accepted.” (Pg. 50-51)

He clarifies, “I think a fundamental problem that we all have is that we are very critical of ourselves to the point where we are even our own enemies. Meditation is a way of making up that quarrel, of accepting ourselves, making friends with ourselves. We may find we are not as bad as we have been told we are. We will also find that meditation practice is not something exotic and high and out of reach so that we cannot grasp it. Meditation practice is something that takes place on a personal level. It involves an intimate relationship with ourselves. Great intimacy is involved. It has nothing to do with achieving perfection, achieving some absolute state of other. It is purely getting into what we are, really examining our actual psychologic process without being ashamed of it. It is getting into what we are properly and thoroughly. It is just friendship with ourselves.” (Pg. 65-66)

He explains, “Another point that needs to be made clear here is the distinction between ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness.’ In the Buddhist tradition, mind is purely that which perceives. It does not require brainwork; it is simple perception, just on the level of the nervous system. This simple instinctive function is called ‘mind.’ … Consciousness, on the other hand, is articulated and intelligent. It is the finally developed state of being that contains all the previous elements. It contains all of the fundamental subtleties of ‘mind’… and it also includes thought patterns. It includes any kind of thinking process. But here the thinking process is on a subconscious level, whether it be discursive, pictorial or instinctive. Consciousness is that sort of fundamental creepy quality that runs behind the actual living thoughts, behind the samskaras.” (Pg. 73-74)

He notes, “So what we are actually studying is the whole process of karmic development without particular reference to which developments are the good ones and which are the bad ones. We are just studying the karmic situation as it is. It is fitting; all aspects of the process coincide in their particular unique ways in each and all situations. This does not mean that everything is prearranged, that you have no choice at all---because everything happens in the present moment. Buddhist philosophy says that the future is vacant rather than prearranged. You cannot have a prearranged future; ‘future’ means nothing has happened yet. Everything, as far as it exists, is in the present situation. The potential of the future is in the present moment.” (Pg. 92-93)

He concludes, “There is a general misconception about Buddhism … People wonder who, is there is no ego, is attaining enlightenment, who is performing all one’s actions? If you have no ego, how can you eat, how can you sleep? In that case ego is misunderstood to be the physical body, rather than what it is---a paranoid insurance policy, the fortified nest of ego. You[r] being can continue without your being defensive about yourself. In fact you become more invincible if you are not defending yourself.” (Pg. 117)

This book will be of keen interest to students of Tibetan Buddhism and Buddhist psychology.
Profile Image for Daishin 寺.
25 reviews1 follower
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March 28, 2025
Hoy comenzamos con nuestras estanterías en GoodReads. Los libros en este perfil disponibles corresponden a nuestra colección física del Templo Mente Magnánima de Bogotá, Daishinji:

"El Abhidharma es una colección de escrituras budistas que profundiza e investiga sobre los procesos mentales y los estados de la conciencia humana. Desde una perspectiva budista la creación del ego es un proceso neurótico basado en la ignorancia de nuestra verdadera situación. Un examen de la formación global del ego lleva al conocimiento de esta confusión y nos brinda la oportunidad de desarrollar una inteligencia libre y plena. La práctica de la meditación se nos presenta como el medio a través del cual podemos ver clara y directamente nuestra situación real. Psicología budista (previamente titulado Abhidharma) es una interpretación provocativa del ego y la psicología ortodoxa, un testimonio fascinante presentado en un contexto humanístico y personal".

#filosofía #psicología #éticapersonal #ego #Sūtra
Profile Image for Daniel.
1,035 reviews92 followers
Read
July 23, 2023
No rating. I didn't get what I was hoping for out of this. Indeed, it frequently put me to sleep and I rarely could follow what he was talking about because there was a lot of overlap in concepts and when any attempt was made to distinguish or define terms, it was by vibes and that just doesn't work for me at all.

Additionally this is that unfortunately common sort of Buddhism book where it's basically just a transcribed series of talks and Q&A sessions, which... definitely not my favorite format.

Lastly, if you don't already know about this guy, maybe check his wikipedia page before picking up any of his books. Just sayin.
4 reviews
June 19, 2021
Rich, interesting, mysterious

Rich, interesting, mysterious, but some parts are tough to follow due to insufficient editing. Yet, beyond that, many passages require multiple readings to gleam the deep teaching and truth within them. A lot packed in such a little book, it points the way, but it is best to approach with some knowledge os the concepts it is based on, the skandhas and nidanas.
Profile Image for Scott Ford.
271 reviews7 followers
August 7, 2017
A good introduction to the five skandhas (form, sensation, perception, mental formation, consciousness). There's actual quite a bit about basic meditation as well.
14 reviews1 follower
February 7, 2021
This explanation of the five skandhas is outstanding.
Profile Image for Ingrid.
149 reviews3 followers
March 17, 2023
Good approach to the five aggregates and their conformation of the "self", although some parts of the language used can serve to confusion.
Profile Image for Vita Pires, Ph.D..
54 reviews
January 26, 2023
There are a lot of authors who can explain the khandas in clear, precise, and useful language. This is not one of them. Some of his explanations are humorous and fanciful ….but overall I’d recommend you look elsewhere for a clearer explanation of this important Buddhist construct.

And if you want to know about the Abhidhamma —please just read it —Bhikkhu Bodhi has an excellent translation.
34 reviews
August 17, 2024
Not my favourite Chogyam Trungpa book, but interesting nonetheless. The series of talks covers a lot about the five skandhas and other psychology. There are questions and answers by students who are interesting to read. I would recommend it to those who need an introduction to Abhidharma.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews

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