The Teacup and the Skullcup: Where Zen and Tantra Meet

by Chögyam Trungpa, Judith L. Lief (Editor), David Schneider (Editor)

The Teacup and the Skullcup is made up of edited transcripts from two seminars that Chögyam Trungpa gave near the beginning of his North American teaching career in 1974—one in Barnet, Vermont, and one in Boston—called "Zen and Tantra." Although Trungpa Rinpoche belonged to the tantra tradition, he acknowledged the strength and discipline gained from Zen influence. Through these talks you can see his respect for the Zen tradition and how it led to his using certain Zen forms for his public meditation hall rituals. He discusses the differences in style, feeling, and emphasis that distinguish the two paths and shows what each one might learn from the other.Also included are Trungpa Rinpoche's commentary on the Ten Oxherding Pictures and an essay he composed in memory of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, a close friend with whom he continually exchanged ideas for furthering buddhadharma in America.

Genres: Buddhism, Zen, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Psychology, Meditation

177 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 8, 2015

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tantra and the Vajrayana always seemed very esoteric to me, as where Zen has a very concrete simplicity I completely loved right away: sit, be quiet, breathe. I suppose some people need more than that, but I was curious when I saw this book. Trungpa founded the Shambhala school of Buddhism, which is basically an amalgamation of different elements of various traditions, tailored for Western audiences. A lot of elements he taught were pulled straight out of Zen teachings, so I figured he saw a lot of overlaps between the Tibetan teachings he was initiated in and the Japanese school and I wanted to know where the two traditions blended.

The book is a series of lectures given by Trungpa in 1974, followed by questions from his students, in a structure similar to "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). But unlike that book, I found this one very convoluted; I had to re-read several passages a few times because I couldn't quite see where Trungpa was going, especially in the first half. He describes Tantra as a sort of built-on tradition that takes Zen to another level but I can't quite figure out how he comes to that conclusion from these lectures and I am starting to think that I might have read them wrong. He also discusses the concept of "crazy wisdom" (as opposed to "wild Zen"), which is a fascinating but very mercurial idea: it is incredibly difficult to explain concretely. The second half of the book felt clearer to me; Trungpa discusses how the mind works during meditation, followed by his commentaries on the traditional Zen illustrations of this process.

I found this book to be very different from what I expected: I think I wanted a very straightforward, almost Venn diagram approach ("this is Tantra, this is Zen, this is where they are the same and this is where they are different!") and that's definitely not what I got. It is an interesting philosophical discussion but I didn't end up finding it very satisfying. 3 and a half stars, to be revisited eventually!

[Jampa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You are not you; therefore, you are. You might find it difficult at this late time of the day to grasp such a subtle point of philosophy. Nevertheless, your fuzziness might help you to realize that subtle logic intuitively."

An amazing short collection of talks on Zen and Tantra by the incomparable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, along with brief stories of his encounters with Zen Masters of the time, most notably the great Suzuki Roshi.

[Buck Wilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tantra is mysticism, Zen is sitting. They link up in the meditation and occasional awareness, but that's really about it. Each chapter ended with a loosely related interview. Trungpa seemed like a pretty cool dude, and remarkably tactful, considering how annoying his interviewer was.

The take home was Tantra is a straight line from point A to point B, whereas Zen follows the curvature of the landscape and is in no particular hurry.

[francisco rivera · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the tantric tradition, there is a lot of emphasis on pleasure, on appreciation of one's body and appreciation of the environment. A kind of transcendental sybaritic attitude develops in the tantric tradition, which is another form of absorption. It is not so much that you are indulging in pleasure as such at the tantric level, but the world ceases to become hostile... The reality and the nakedness of emotions, and the reality and nakedness of sense perceptions become piercingly irritating, because there is no defensive mechanism to protect you from the world... nothing to shield you from the brilliance and vividness of the world... the whole thing becomes more demanding. That is the notion of absorption."

So much to say and it feels like I can express none of it in such a way that does justice to the author or the school of thought. I guess there is nothing to do but try.

This is my second time reading Chogyam Trungpa, my introduction was the entirely shattering "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism". It was a great comfort to find in this book that a sense of spiritual paranoia is in many ways a good symptom, characteristic even, of the vajrayana, because that's the gift Cutting Through gave me. Developing the haunting concern that it's actually the ego talking is, according to him, actually a good technique. Because when you hear talking, it usually is the ego. In this installment, he expanded on that with the doctrine of ordinary mind, and dropped the truth that the ego has buddhanature too. And that... THAT! Was a revelation. One of the principles that draws me so closely to the vajrayana is the idea that the ego is not there to be annihilated. It is there to be listened to, learned from. It is a spiritual tool just like meditation.

There was a greater focus in this one on Zen as well. And now to be honest with you, that's not something that has ever resonated with me. I have grown closer to it, and learned how to love it in my own way, but I think I will always bring a sort of wilderness to that practice that doesn't belong there. CTR says that the point of Zen is to really, actually get bored. And to sit there, and be bored, and to love doing that. Well now that's not something I can get behind. I always expect the boredom to sublimate into some type of bliss, and that is what I find so exceedingly difficult about seated meditation. But it's interesting how both of these schools point to the same place. He also talked about Zen as a big joke, but not a trick. I love this because there is a definite comedic side to Zen. "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Sounds, more than anything, like the setup for a punchline. And the flash moment where you understand the answer, that's the aim of the school of Zen. Approaching it that way, Zen is something I can get behind.

It wouldn't be right if I didn't include a yoga intermission here. Much of my practice is fed by the school of tantra, and that's something I'm hesitant to share because tantra often takes people to sexual connotations straight away. And if you want to talk about sex, I would like to respond to that with a quote by psychic and astrologer Walter Mercado: "I have sexuality with the wind, with the flowers in the garden, with all the beautiful displays of nature... I have sex with life." That feels much closer to the spirit of tantra for me, and to the way I bring this discipline to my practice of yoga. There have been moments in yoga where I am dancing on the clouds, others where I'm a roaring lion devouring prey, and ever so rarely, the moments where I am both. More recently I have been grappling with how to convey similar tantric experiences as a teacher, and I'm glad to say I'm slowly making progress on that front. It's a journey of course <3

For reference, a few points I liked in this one: the doctrine of ordinary mind, that the ruggedness of the mind is the goal of tantra. The experience of shunyata, which reminded me of the difference between feeling grateful and being grateful (I feel grateful very often. But there have been only a handful of times in my life where I actually WAS grateful). Anuttara: transcendence beyond ideas of a higher or lower level of spirituality. The idea that some emotions "vibrate at a higher frequency" has, for a while now, felt like a psyop. Everything is to be held, learned from, and in time released.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a few nice gems in this collection of lectures--especially Trungpa's explanation of the oxherding pictures--but overall this was too hair-splitty for the increasingly casual dharma fan such as myself.

[Miriam Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thick, at times opaque, as CTR often is. But amazing and essential teachings especially to getting at the nuances between Level II-III Miksang.

[LindaLH · Rating 4 out of 5]

The paperback was from my Goodwill stash

Around the year in 52 books challenge notes:
#32. A book related to the 2020 Olympic Summer Games in Japan

[Scott Ford]

Comparison and contrast between Zen and Tibetan Buddhist approaches.