The Double Mirror: A Skeptical Journey into Buddhist Tantra

by Stephen T. Butterfield

In The Double Mirror, the author's personal history-- as a student of the late Tibetan master Chogyam Trungpa, known for his unconventional lifestyle and "crazy wisdom" teaching style-- is the framework for an incisive and eloquent examination of a profound spiritual journey. Writing both from a critical perspective and from his direct experience of Vajrayana practice, the author look at Buddhist tantric teachings and practices and their expressions in Vajradhatu, Trungpa's organization. While discussing how the institution may sometimes function like a "cult," Butterfield nonetheless experiences Buddhist tantra as an authentic system of profound spiritual transformation.

The Double Mirror explores the effects of Buddhist practice on personality, autonomy, perception, and health, and discusses what Buddhism has to offer American. With skeptical intelligence, Butterfield illuminates the stages, teachings, and assumptions of the Tibetan Buddhist path, offering a frank and insightful portrayal of the ideal and reality of spiritual life.

Genres: Buddhism, Religion, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 1994

Reviews

[Jeffrey Buller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this a very puzzling book. Initially I started reading it because I've done the five levels of Shambhala training and enjoyed the meditation techniques/opportunity they provide, but was concerned or put off by some of the cultish aspects of Shambhala. (The rituals, the chanting, the bows, the initiation ceremonies, and so on, plus the almost Scientology-like urging to continue on to the next level and take more courses.) After finishing Level 5, I read The Shambhala Principle by Chogyam Trungpa's son, which I didn't like at all and which smacked too much of a hagiography of his father. All of which led me to wonder, Was Chogyam Trungpa really as saintly as he's presented by Shambhala (spoiler alert: no, he definitely wasn't)? And has anyone ever been concerned that Shambhala is a cult (spoiler alert: yes, they definitely had)? All of which brought me to The Double Mirror.

For a significant part of The Double Mirror, I found exactly what I had suspected. Chogyam Trungpa was almost certainly an alcoholic, drinking even when giving lessons and eventually partially crippling himself because of an accident he had while driving drunk; drinking contributed significantly to his health issues and early death. The Shambhala teaching is presented as a secular approach to mindfulness (and possibly enlightenment), but it increasingly becomes overt Tantric Buddhism as one progresses in it, and the obeisances and obedience participants give to the head of Shambhala are very cultlike indeed. Shambhala even went through the common cult pattern (cf. Scientology, The Way, and the Hare Krishnas) of having a charismatic founder who died and was succeeded by a far sketchier second leader.

But then Butterfield tries to have it both ways: Yes, Shambhala is a cult, just as Amway (which Butterfield also wrote about) was a cult, and yes, Chogyam Trungpa was a very questionable figure, but wait ... the obedience Shambhala demands for its leader really is perfectly in accord with the Tibetan guru tradition, Chogyam Trungpa's drinking and immorality are genuine reflections of the "crazy wisdom" and Tantric traditions, and there's even a lot of value to be gained from doing 1,000 obeisances. So, I finished the book thinking, "Does Stephen Butterfield think that Shambhala is mostly good or mostly bad?" I really couldn't tell. A defender would say that he just captured the complexity of a subject that can't be contained by polar opposites like "good" and "bad." But while I'm perfectly willing to make up my own mind about that issue, I really wish that the author hadn't waffled quite so much. He seems to be glad he's out of the movement but feels that he gained a lot from it, and we can, too. So, I find the book on the whole puzzling.

The quick summary is that Shambhala, parts of which are genuine Tibetan tradition and parts of which Chogyam Trungpa simply made up on the fly, is a popularized form of Tantric Buddhism. (Some Shambhala instructors even now bristle when you say so or use Buddhist expressions to describe your experience, but let's be honest ... .) That tradition sees Buddhism as following in three successive stages, which the student also follows in his or her progress.

1. Hinayana (the Small Vehicle): Basically Theravada tradition. The goal is personal enlightenment. The skill developed is mindfulness.
2. Mahayana (the Large Vehicle): The goal is universal liberation. The skill developed is compassion.
3. Vajrayana (the Diamond Vehicle): Basically Tantric tradition. The goal is breaking free of categories limited by the mind. Pleasure can be used to achieve higher spiritual states. Traditional morality doesn't apply to those who are sufficiently enlightened. The kleshas (negative mental states that earlier were hindrances) now become virtues and means of greater spiritual growth.

If the goal is indeed to make up our own minds, then here is where I've come out (which should be no surprise at all if you've read this far): Shambhala is, if not a cult, definitely cultish in many of its beliefs and practices. I'll continue to participate in its open meditations and meditation-focused short retreats, but I'm not interested in its courses or the "gradual-level study" that comes after Level 5. (I regard mindfulness as a way of getting off the BA, MA, PhD, assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, department chair, dean ladder of always living your life in preparation for the next thing, never enjoying the now, not as an excuse to get on another, apparently never-ending ladder of levels, courses, pins, and ceremonies.) Like Butterfield, I'll value Shambhala for what good it can do, but keep it very much at arm's length. I'm content with the Hinayana goals; I simply don't believe that universal liberation is possible, crazy wisdom is anything more than a very dangerous self-delusion, or that Basic Goodness really exists. I don't believe in deities, and certainly not Angry Gods, Rigden Kings, or those clunky concepts like "Perky" and "Windhorse" that really could stand some good marketing and rebranding work. I think that, like many cult leaders, Chogyam Trumpa started out bright and with a wonderful dream but eventually came to believe his own PR and was just as much a con man as he was a saint (maybe more, particularly near the end of his life).

The world still needs what Shambhala once promised: a truly secular mindfulness and spirituality, a spirituality for people who don't believe in spirits. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction isn't it because there's a lot more to mindfulness than stress reduction; besides, scratch the surface of nearly any MBSR teacher, and you'll find a Buddhist; just when you think you're getting scientifically-based mindfulness training, they trot out the Gautama Siddhartha myth for the 3,000th time. The Relaxation Response isn't it because there's a lot more to mindfulness than relaxation; besides, the whole goal of the practice is to be more alert, not more relaxed. So, we still need a Society for Secular Spiritually, a truly American or western approach to mindfulness and meditation that uses: chairs not zabutons; rivers and waterfalls, not busts of the Buddha and torii; and a worldview of today, not that of centuries past. Takers anyone?

[Me · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book twenty years ago and just recently reread it. I do attend Shambhala retreats and have friends who are very much in this life. This being said, I believe this an important book for every Shambhala follower to read. The tradition has some ugly history. I take what is useful from the tradition but keep my mind on the history to insure I don't fall into any of the cult like patterns within the organization. I show up, make friends, laugh and then go home until the next meditation group. The group truly has some fine teachers.

I adopt what is useful, and stay clear of the more bizarre things. Given I have alienated a few people laughing at behavior that is taken as sacred but I just finding silly and absurd.

Reading it the second time, I felt more compassion for Trumpa than I did as a young man. The guy had his country invaded by the Chinese, he was thrown into modernized West in the middle of the cold war. Sometimes I wonder if intoxication is a responsible reaction to an insane world. I don't drink, but I do have the urge to escape the pain through intoxication from time to time. Perhaps his alcoholism was a form of self medication. He must have been traumatized by life and no matter how much one meditates you cannot fix all trauma.

Off to go get some air.... Overall.. worth the read for all traditions.

[Marsha Altman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't say I'm that surprised that this book is well out-of-print. Most books written by Westerners who have been through Buddhist systems and emerged critical of them have been shelved. Only Stephen Batchelor has really been able to break through, and that's thanks to repeated attempts to write the same book.

The author was heavily involved in Chogyam Trungpa's famous Rigpa organization, which the author refers to as Vajradhatu, for it seems about a decade. After going through a messy divorce of some kind, he became interested in Buddhism and eventually took Trungpa as his guru, and continued to study after Trungpa's death under Osel Tendzin until Osel himself went "into retreat" when it was revealed that he not only had AIDS but was aware of it but not honest with his sexual partners and had transmitted the virus to several people. The author then continued his practices for a bit longer before giving up because he felt that he was on a "conveyer belt" of neverending advancement requirements.

The book is not an expose of Trungpa or the behavior of people in his organization. Butterfield took his studies very seriously, and though he eventually returned to the skepticism he had more of in the beginning, he feels that the experience was a net positive. He focuses on explaining the path he was taught through the three different stages, going through the rituals he performed and how they transformed him psychologicaly, and trying to summarize the teachings he recieved over the years. The author remains on the fence as to whether he was in a cult or a genuine religion, since in this case it isn't clear, and he goes into why that is and how he feels about it.

The downside is the book gets bogged down in Rigpa philosophy, which is extremely difficult to understand because it's inherently self-contradictory. The author does his absolute best, and refers readers to other books for more information (some of which have gone on to become Buddhist classics in the West), but ultimately I could not understand what he was saying, which may not have been his fault.

I still recommend this book, but only to people who have some background in Buddhism and/or the story of Chogyram Trungpa in America, as both of those loom large in the book.

[Ricky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never written a book, but my experience reading books tells me that it must be really hard to write the ending of a book because they're usually not very good. Here is another example of that. I found much of this book to be very engaging, at times riveting, but the last few chapters are meandering and unsatisfying, from my perspective. Everything kind of crashes to a halt with about 30 or so pages left to the book. He starts rambling about whether you can judge Buddhism by the fact that Buddhist poetry is frequently not very good and for me it never really recovered from that.

Still it was a fascinating read. I think this is out of print but I tracked it down because people on the internet are always presenting it as a smoking gun to prove that Tibetan Buddhism, especially Shambhala Buddhism, is a dangerous cult full of evil psychopaths. I really have to wonder if any of those people have actually read this book because the story he presents is much more complicated than that and he very clearly ends the book talking about how his experiences in vajrayana were beneficial and he wholeheartedly recommends the path to other people with the caveat that you hold on to and respect the voice of doubt in your mind which is an essential part of sanity. I suppose one thing that resonated with me and those final chapters was this idea of doubt being an essential part of the spiritual path.

[Allys Dierker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted this to be more of a historical commentary on Chögyam Trungpa and Osel Tendzin. It was not. There was some of that, but mostly it was an autobiographical recounting of Butterfield's experience with Tibetan Buddhism.

Lots of Buddhist terminology--too specialized and detailed to mean much to me given my current level of knowledge. Good bits on cults and how guru culture lends itself to cultish worship.

Spoiler alert: he gives up Vajrayana practice and connects it to his house getting robbed of musical equipment. He gives it up to see if he experiences Vajra hell, and settles into the explanation that he's already enlightened and can make it just fine w/o the additional stages of Buddhist advancement. This feels simultaneously reasonable (not many grounded in the "real" world have the leisure to embark on a three-year retreat) and like trying on Buddhism as a fashion, giving up the commitment when it ceases to provide easy comfort ("easy" is relative: his commitment to this point was certainly significant). His final chapter about America being poised for Buddhism, even as it's on the wane in Asia, leaves me with the same questions I began with about consumerism and fashionable trends. First published in '94--need to read more about more recent Western trends.

[꧁ k e l s e y ꧂]

DNF. Read for class. Reading the inside scoop of a past (and current society I am not privy to, but am curious about.