Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

by Chögyam Trungpa

In this modern spiritual classic, the Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa highlights the commonest pitfall to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: what he calls spiritual materialism. The universal tendency, he shows, is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement—the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty. "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use," he said, "even spirituality." His incisive, compassionate teachings serve to wake us up from this trick we all play on ourselves, and to offer us a far brighter reality: the true and joyous liberation that inevitably involves letting go of the self rather than working to improve it. It is a message that has resonated with students for nearly thirty years, and remains fresh as ever today.

This new edition includes a foreword by Chögyam Trungpa's son and lineage holder, Sakyong Mipham.

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

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

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

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only way we’re going to cut through our spiritual materialism is by cutting right through our souls - to their other, hidden side.

How would you define Spiritual Materialism? Probably as nothing more and nothing less than a day when everything seems to be going right for you. You’re having things YOUR way.

The way you’re USED to having them.

Our hope springs eternal. Even when it’s too unbearably much for our neighbours!

I first read this powerful gem of a book 35 years ago. Want to know a secret? It doesn’t work. At least it didn’t for me.

At first.

The late Head of the Montréal Zen Centre, Albert Low, put it to me like this: if you meditate, either as a practice or as an everyday way of thinking about things and people, and let these things or people penetrate your meditation and the deeper levels of your mind - well, you’re BOUND to feel a sympathetic bond or connection with these things or people.

And a feeling of peace?

Warm sympathy. High empathy. Isn’t that what ALL true deep thought should produce?

But, Low tells us, if you continue, eventually your subconscious will be TEEMING with images of the people or things you know.

You’ll be like a traffic cop holding up your gloved hand against oncoming traffic at Times Square, whistling and gesticulating wildly.

High anxiety!

This is what Trungpa called Mahamudra - a startling holistic mandala made up of your, and the world’s, projections upon it.

A nightmarish glimpse of Tantra.

And the magic carpet ride of Mahamudra can open up a veritable Pandora’s Box.

Yikes.

Saint Teresa of Avila knew that period in our spiritual life well.

In her books she masterfully charts the changing phases of spirituality - right through to its conclusion in common, everyday, lasting Peace and the Simple Experience of Real and Ordinary Life - as Natural as Breathing!

Isn’t that what we ALL want?

It’s what we just can’t seem to get, or most of the time can’t even bother trying to get.

Why? Cause we have to turn life into something Solid and Lapidary.

We need to hang on to it, TOO much.

So Trungpa says through meditation we WILL eventually loosen our grip, cut through our materialistic fantasies and find rest. But on the way we have to survive Mahamudra.

Like James Joyce tried to do.

Joyce, author of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, was a High Empath. His autobiographical Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man tells us that.

Stephen Dedalus, who’s the hero, reveals more and more of his - and by extension, Joyce’s - own abnormally (and thus Proustian) acute sensitivity.

Well, at the end of that book Stephen applies the fix Trungpa was referring to, in Thomistic aesthetic meditation. And it works. He finally seems to have Arrived in life.

His fix?

Ordinary Logic.

That skewers High Empathy.

For a while.

Joyce nicknamed the next phase by its symptom: the panicky feeling, usually in your dreams (or for Joyce, in his baroquely complex final writings) - of “Here Comes Everybody.”

That’s reality bouncing back, with a Vengeance.

Mahamudra.

Ever feel like that?

Like the nightmarish mind of Joyce, in his last work, Finnegans Wake.

And the words Here Comes Everybody are only using the initials of H.C. Earwicker, one of the many faces of the legendary Finn, or mythical progenitor of Ireland - and the main character of that hieroglyphically difficult novel.

So here you are, in a nutshell:

The reasons why so many of us, including James Joyce - and Dostoevsky’s Prince Myshkin, for all that - are spiritually or competitively materialistic...

Is because the everyday world so incessantly disappoints - and is unlikely to ever change - and so we need escape. In our lapidary dreams.

Which never works for long.

Mahamudra is not our destination. Whether we’re a writer or a monk, it’s a tantric means to an end. And it’s booby-trapped.

It is a methodology for killing our irrational EGOS - by exploding them.

So we end up terminating the ego and its mahamudric nightmares with a simple, nondual, kitchen-sink Faith - if you can kill that ego.

That faith sees THROUGH ourselves and yields a wonderful, practical Peace of Mind - and ends in the experience of the Living Suchness of Life.

Far from all those Joycean Storms of Life.

It’s the termination of all our own manic (but necessary) Stages on Life’s Way, in the sanity of Shared Space -

The Infinite Space beyond ourselves, in ordinary, real love.

[Roy Lotz · Rating 3 out of 5]

We do not consider how we are going to vomit; we just vomit.

Chögyam Trungpa was a charismatic and controversial figure in the Western popularization of Buddhism. As a teenager in Tibet, Trungpa fled the Chinese in an escape that involved swimming across a river under gunfire, climbing the Himalayas, and running so short of food that he had to eat his leather belt and bag. Eventually he emigrated to the United States, where he founded several schools, and pioneered a secular interpretation of Buddhism, Shambhala Training. You may be surprised to learn that Trungpa, far from being an ascetic monk, also had notorious penchants for bedding his female students and for going on drunken debauches.

My interest in Trungpa was sparked by reading a book on meditation by his disciple, Pema Chödrön, which I thought was excellent. Spiritual Materialism, Trungpa’s most famous book, contains two series of lectures Trungpa gave, in 1970-71, about the pitfalls of the spiritual path and how to overcome them. As such, this series of lectures is largely theoretical rather than practical—how to think about the spiritual path rather than what to do once you’re on it—even if there are practical ramifications.

‘Spiritual materialism’ is Trungpa’s term for the ways that the ego co-opts spirituality for its own benefit. ‘Ego’ is our sense of self. In Buddhist thought, this sense of self is illusory; the self is a process, not a thing. Ego is the mind’s attempt to create an illusion of solidity where none exists. Put another way, ‘ego’ is the mind’s attempt to reject impermanence.

This attempt takes many forms. We modify our environment, manipulating the material world and bringing it under our control, in order to create a perfectly comfortable world that never challenges or disappoints us. We create intellectual systems—positivism, nationalism, Buddhism—that rationalize and explain the world, that define our place in the world and dictate to us rules of action. We also attempt to analyze ourselves: we use literature, psychology, drugs, prayer, and meditation to achieve a sense of self-consciousness, an awareness of who we are. All of these are the ego’s attempts to solidify both itself and its world, to see the universe as a series of defined shapes rather than an endless flux.

This project of solidification can even use spiritual techniques in its own benefit. The goal of meditation is the dissolution of the ego and the absence of struggle. And yet many who embark on the spiritual path see meditation as a battle with the ego, an attempt to break certain habits, to overcome certain mentalities, to free themselves from illusions. If spirituality is seen in such a way—as 'you' against 'something else'—then you will hit a wall; and this wall will only get stronger the harder you push against it. Only when you give up trying to destroy this wall, when you stop struggling, does the wall disappear; for the wall was the product of your own ‘dualistic’ thinking—once again, 'you' against 'something else'—and ceases to exist when you stop trying to destroy it:

“There is no need to struggle to be free; the absence of struggle is in itself freedom. This egoless state is the attainment of buddhahood.”

It is no use, therefore, to practice acts of extreme asceticism, forceful acts of self-denial. It is no use to try to overcome your own negative qualities—to strive to be good, kind, caring, loving. It is no use to accumulate vast amounts of religious knowledge; nor is it beneficial to accumulate religious titles or honorifics. True spirituality is not a battle, not a quality, not an ultimate analysis, and it is not an accomplishment. All of those things belong to a person, whereas enlightenment contains no sense of me and not-me.

This is my best attempt to summarize the core message of this book. (And please excuse the ponderous style; I've been reading Hegel.) Yet I’m not exactly sure how to go about analyzing or evaluating it. Indeed, such criticism seems totally antithetical to the ethos of this book. But I’ll try, nevertheless.

There is an obvious contradiction between Trungpa’s stance on intellectual analysis—as the ego’s vain attempt to solidify its world through intellectual work—and the analysis that he himself undertakes in this book. If all analysis is vain, what makes his any different? To this, I think he would respond that analysis is fine if we take the right attitude towards it—namely, as long as we keep in mind that our analysis is not identical with the reality it attempts to describe, that we can never describe reality perfectly, and that there’s always a chance we are wrong. More succinctly, I think he’d say analysis is fine as long as we don’t take it too seriously. By his own admission, there is no ‘final analysis’ of the human condition; and enlightenment is characterized by the absence of any need to analyze.

Still, there does seem to be the idea in Trungpa’s system that, in attaining this ego-less state, we are experiencing the ‘truth’ of reality, whereas before we were mired in the 'illusions' of the ego. In this, you might say that the system is esoteric: true knowledge is the purview of only the truly enlightened. True knowledge, in other words, is not transmissible through speech, but is the result of privileged state which only a few achieve. Bodhisattvas become authorities through their enlightened states, beings who must be listened to because of their special, higher perspectives. Again, I think Trungpa would respond that even the ideas of ‘knowledge’ and 'truth' are dualistic (they involves the sense of ‘me’ knowing 'something else'), and thus this idea is not applicable to the enlightened.

Putting all this aside, it’s worth asking whether this ego-less state is even desirable. Could we have science, technology, literature, or love without a sense of self? An ego-less world might involve less suffering; but isn’t there something to be said for suffering? Trungpa describes the ego as a monkey creating various worlds—creating for itself its own heaven and hell, a world of animal desire and human intellect—and moving through these self-created worlds in a vain search for perfect happiness, only to have each of its own worlds collapse in turn. And yet, even if I accepted Trungpa’s premise that this struggle is vain, I still think it’s an open question whether perfect tranquility is preferable to vain struggle.

All reservations notwithstanding, I still thought that this book was an enlightening read. While I may be skeptical about the prospect of enlightenment and ego-death, I do think that meditation, as a method of slowing down, of savoring one’s own mental life, and of learning to accept the world around you, is an extremely useful technique. And as a technique, its end is an experience—or perhaps, better yet, an attitude—and the theory that goes along with meditation does not constitute its substance; rather, theory is just a pedagogical tool to help guide less experienced practitioners. It is in this light, I think, that these lectures should be read.

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

"Ego is able to convert everything to its own use, even spirituality."

Spiritual materialism can be defined as a self-delusion that some people have, when what they believe to be spiritual development is in fact strengthening their ego. It's a very common trapping for students of Buddhism (but not exclusively; it actually occurs in all spiritual disciplines), and by publishing the notes from his talks, Chogyam Trungpa wished to help his students understand how they could avoid falling into it.

Shallow spirituality can seem paradoxical, but it's more common than we might imagine. Many people are drawn to the esthetics of Eastern traditions (it is beautiful and exotic) and because they feel glamorous integrating parts of that in their lives (it does make one sound special and worldly, doesn't it?), but in those cases there's rarely any depth or honesty to the practice. Sometimes the delusion is more subtle, like believing that following a teacher absolves the student of any kind of responsibility and power, that once there's been an enlightenment experience one doesn't need to work on themselves anymore, or simply the arrogance that having encountered insight makes one better than other people.

Trungpa was a Tibetan monk, and while he loved the tradition he was initiated in, he also understood that some aspects of it could be distracting traps, especially for Western students (who live in a society where physical materialism is incredibly sophisticated), and he wanted to give them a strong understanding of the core of Buddhism - which really isn't about pretty flags, bells and other shiny things. He had an immense respect for Japanese Zen, and it shows in those lectures, and he emphasizes a lot of elements of Zen philosophy.

Since this book deals with pitfalls of the spiritual path and how to avoid them, it is much more a theoretical book than a practical manual. This book feels to me like the warning leaflet that comes with a new medication: watch out for these side-effects, if you experience them, call your doctor! I'll be honest: I think everyone studying Buddhism (though maybe newbies would find it a bit tough), regardless of tradition or school, should read this - and then re-read it occasionally. It is one of those books that will only get better as it is revisited, and I'm pretty sure I'll catch things on my next read that went 6 feet over my head on this one. I also think it is a necessary and thought-provoking read, because figuring out one's motivation to be on this path is important if one is to avoid self-delusion and lose the plot completely.

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find that most of my pursuits are spiritual in their ends, but that they are contingent upon material winnings. I took an aura photograph and saw a chakra reader recently, most of my friends having gone and received a "lower" chakra and being a color like orange or red or indigo at best. I got a "white color" aura photo and was told that I have a "crown chakra" (the highest, most enlightened of them all). It seemed fishy to me because I feel just as full of anxieties and self-doubt as any other person, I know just about as much of the truth of the Universe as anybody else. ("Well, maybe more than most people my age," I tell myself). I catch myself, and that is where I feel I am taking a bit of a left turn-- always telling myself that I am more "not of the flesh" than others, even though I use material means to achieve my spiritual goals, and then I re-use these spiritual experiences as if they were gathered like money or something tangible, rather than being mindful, and open, and in-the-present.

This book is a good read for those of us who have hit the spiritual high our whole lives, often using not fraudulent, but just very accumulative, sometimes spiritually arrogant, methods of getting us there.

I just hope I don't read this and unconsciously use it to reinforce my already run-amuck self-deception about how experience can be turned like water into the gold of spiritual gain.

[Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the most plain English explanation of the path of spirituality from the Tibetan Buddhist perspective I have ever read. It does not contradict what is taught by theistic religions and it describes all religions to be different methods of attaining the same goal. It has nothing to do with spirits or afterlife. It has everything to do with our subjective reality of the present moment. This book shows a path to a state of mind that allows you to flow like water through space and time rather than violently thrashing and splashing against the current as many of us currently are.

The first talk is all about the common pitfalls of trying to attain realization. These delusions are especially prevalent in the West, where the interest in these teachings is fairly new and we are deeply entrenched in a materialist worldview.

Spiritual materialism is when you have the thought, "I'm working on myself" or "I'm bettering myself". It is when, instead of gaining any insight into the universe as it is, this act of spirituality becomes just another thing you add to the collection of your identity. The goal of spiritual progression is to understand and see the eternal sameness of all things; to give up the notion of duality. Spiritual materialism is ego-reinforcing and becomes itself another form of duality.

In the second half of the book, he broadly describes the path of Bodhisattva. I would say this is a very good book for anyone who has been interested in or practicing mindfulness or Vipassana for a little while and finds themselves thinking, "Well.. what now?" Discovering Vipassana is like the first little glimpse into what's possible through this practice. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism is like the intermediate step; the next step being to find a spiritual friend who can teach you how to meditate. That was one thing the book was explicit about. You can't do it by yourself. At best, you will be able to catch momentary glimpses, but you have to learn how to meditate from someone who is very experienced.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of transcripts of lectures by an extremely controversial Tibetan Buddhist leader. (a friend of mine once compared him to Jim Jones) One of the most important and also strangest reading experiences I've come across in a long time, if not always for the reasons I wager the author intended.

The majority of the lectures warn in great depth and detail against various manifestations of religious dogmatism and personality cults, phenomena which the author coined the umbrella term "spiritual materialism" to describe. Maybe it's a direct translation from his Tibetan mother tongue, or a formulation designed to emphasis that taking a dogmatic approach to following any religion misses the whole point of it? At any rate, these are the important parts of this book since the types of religious dogmatism Trungpa dissects here are not unique to Buddhists nor are the types of personality cultism he writes about unique to religious contexts. As a result of reading this book I have become much better at recognising when I fall into any of those traps and pulling out of them; I would probably not have come as far without.

Thing is? If you look up Chögyam Trungpa on Wikipedia, you will learn in detail how he ran the religious movement he founded (called Vajradhatu in his lifetime but renamed into Shambhala International by his son Sakyong Mipham) as the exact type of dogmatic personality cult which he spends most of this book warning against! I had the same experience when reading Carlos Castañeda's "The Second Ring of Power", whose basic themes caution against the dogmatism that ended up characterising the Tensegrity movement which Castañeda founded to preserve and promote his teachings. Unlike Castañeda, Trungpa's credentials within the religious tradition he taught were impeccable, so he could not be dismissed as a fraud as many people have done with Castañeda. At any rate it looks like neither man heeded his own advice to other people.

There is an important point to be learned from this revelation: That religious leaders, no matter how flawless their credentials or how sound the philosophies which they promote might be to live by, cannot be realistically expected to be any more morally virtuous than anyone else... likewise that is possible to learn important and valuable insights from people who fail horrifically at what they prescribe for others.

The remaining WTF? moments I encountered when reading this book come from Trungpa explaining complicated Buddhist concepts to Western audiences by comparing them to (roughly) equivalent ideas from Freudian psychoanalysis. For example explaining the six realms of rebirth in terms of the ego projecting its insecurities unto an illusory external world. I guess this seemed less awkward in 1973, when this book was published and Freudianism was not considered as old-fashioned as it is today?

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my 100th read of the year! Obviously, boasting about this is a form of spiritual materialism. Sigh.

In a nutshell, spiritual materialism is that which accumulates within ourselves that obscures our ability to see things as they really are and hampers our ability to live within that context, without all the baggage of expectation and stress and judgment and egocentricity and so on.

This is a good, clear, non-jargon-heavy (if repetitive) explanation of the concepts of Zen and how to begin the process of putting them into practice, or, more precisely, how to start on the path of living in the now instead of in the past, the future or in a false and unfulfilling realm marked by our myriad confusions. A lot of this I have already found useful in helping me see things with a more open, forgiving, less possessive perspective.

Now, do I actually buy into *all* of this stuff? Maybe not -- or maybe that's just my ego defenses talking.

I suppose a world of people working hard communally to provide for the basic good and nourishment of the self and one's neighbors while living without tremendous ambition in the now and engaging in frequent meditation has a certain appeal, given how we've fucked over ourselves and everything else. But, I mean, if we took Buddhism to its ultimate extreme, how could language even develop? We can't label things or conceptualize? Hmmm. And I wonder how in a world entirely imbued by Buddhism could the better things of our industrialized society have even developed. Would there be wine, casual sex, electric guitar music and so on? I don't think so, and I kind of like those things, not just because they are possessions or opiates, but because they are beautiful. I'm skeptical that the human mind and body has evolved just to jettison a lot of its intellectual capabilities and other drives as Buddhism seems to want us to do. I just can't help but think that a Zen Buddhist world would be a really, really boring one.

[Chris Lemig · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first began to delve into Buddhism I though, "Ah ha! Here it is! The TRUTH!!!" At first I thought that I would now just be able to read a few words and: "Wham, bam, thank you , Stan," I'm enlightened. I thought that the truth was supposed to be simple, profound and sublime. If we had to talk about it too much then it couldn't be the TRUTH. Well, I was wrong.

Yes, the truth is simple but the way to it is ever unfolding. It takes time, skill and effort to get to it. We must read about it, study it, discuss it, practice it and apply it. Over and over and over again. This is what I have gotten out of Chogyam Trungpa's book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism.

The first part of the book deals with the fact that "ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality." Trungpa Rinpoche explains how this fundamental pitfall along the spiritual path can be avoided by being ever mindful of the trappings of the ego: discursive thoughts, negative emotions, desires and judgements. Paradoxically, we must also embrace our inner strength and cultivate a great confidence that we will be able to see this path to the end. As Trungpa says, "You must allow yourself to trust yourself, to trust in your own intelligence. We are tremendous people, we have tremendous things in us. We simply have to let ourselves be."

The second half of the book dives deep into Buddhist thought and philosophy (which, of course, he shows to be "non-philosophy". Aaarrghhh!!!!) He clearly elucidates the topics of developement of the ego, the six realms of existence (an important aspect of the Buddhist understanding of reality), the Four Noble Truths, and the concept of emptiness. All of the chapters, each of which was transcibed from a lecture series he gave in the early 70's, is followed by a question and answer section which clarify the topics even further.

Great book. Amazing teacher. I recommend this one to anyone who has at least a beginning understanding of Buddhism.

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviewing books on Buddhism presents unique challenges, at least for me. The first of these is disentangling the wisdom contained in a great extant corpus, such as Buddhism's—which every modern text draws from—from the contributions unique to the text in question. This is often complicated further when the reader already has some expectations from or, dare I say, reverence for some or other portion of that corpus. One begins to bring those concepts with him to every text, along with his preconceptions, and this can lead to an undeserved suspension of criticism. The benefit of the doubt is given a little too freely. Or perhaps the opposite is the case, where one refuses to admit a view which contradicts his own mean interpretation.

This is not a problem exclusive to Buddhism. It confronts any attempt to deal with fundamental existential problems while drawing from a preexisting scaffold of mature cultural and intellectual assumptions. If Western Philosophy were still taken seriously as a tradition with dire consequences for the individual, I would say the same of those texts. Unfortunately, most of the vitality of that tradition has been sucked out or crushed under its own weight, obsolescence, or elitism. In becoming dead and respectable, a subject for conscientious autopsies and gleeful post-postmortems, Western Philosophy has inured itself from the kind of chicanery which inevitably arises within, and which can be used to easily discredit, a tradition which claims to offer real spiritual benefit to the individual. But Buddhism is uniquely vulnerable to exploitation in another way. One of its tenets, after all, is non-dualism, and a kind of suspension of judgment. This is a notion that can be understood in one of its facets as "surrender." "Surrender" is a word that Trungpa uses repeatedly. I think there is a place for surrender, but I can't think of many forms of devotion quite so dangerous if misunderstood.

While reading Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, I found myself grappling with my objectivity over and over. Moments of personal agreement and recognition punctuated an often disjointed, hazy, and unsatisfying set of talks. At his best, Trongpa conveys the many dangers of bringing misplaced egoism into a spiritual journey, but he addresses the substance of that journey only intermittently and superficially.

The first half of the book deals with this notion of spiritual materialism and ego-inflation, which I think is an important and useful topic. But the antidotes he seems to prescribe in places feel vaguely cultist. At times Trungpa seems downright dissembling, especially in these "Q&A" sections, which seldom make anything clearer. This applies especially to the talks on Gurus or, as they are known in this tradition, "spiritual friends." Trungpa removes all doubt about subtle interpretations about whether one needs a guru, or whether that guru need be made of human flesh, by answering a question point blank: one must have a guru to achieve the kind of openness of which he speaks, and this guru must be a real, material, and proximate human being. To me, this kind of broad statement reeks of sectionalism and cultural conservatism and conflicts with the principle that there are manifold paths to enlightenment.

On the other hand, Trongpa is also careful to deflate the notion of "spiritual friend" as some kind of perfect teacher or saint. Indeed, he makes some wonderful points about flexibility and extracting wisdom and whatever is to be learned from any situation or person, regardless of how one may be disposed to categorize or objectify said people or situations. But then he turns around and dismisses approaches outside of his idiosyncratic emotional transmission. This felt rather flim-flam, especially when one considers Trungpa's status as a leader of a kind of religious commune in the sixties, coming in contact with celebrities, and getting into some controversial and hardly saintly situations. I don't normally like to consider ad hominem arguments when contextualizing a text, but when the topic is as fraught for abuse as this, it strikes me as prudent to consider the source. And both the source and the text seem rife with subtle contradictions and misty thinking. I am not saying that these views are unjustifiable, but the author didn't bother to justify them here. So the first half of the book is useful, but to my thinking, substantially marred for the general reader.

Moving onto the second half of the book, the topicality on "spiritual materialism" more or less evaporates into a rather straightforward summary of various Buddhist doctrines from different schools of the various "vehicles." This is the sort of thing you would expect from an introductory series of talks. I was much more engaged with this material, but I couldn't help thinking that the purpose would have been better served by giving more time to the titular subject, or else expanding upon one or more of these fundamental doctrines in its own right, any one of which stands up to a lifetime of study. Why tumble through all this so haphazardly? Its inappropriateness as an introduction, I think, became obvious to me when I noticed myself filling in the blanks with what I knew, but when coming to something I knew little about (vajrayana/tantra, for instance) I was struck by how new-agey and hand-wavy it seemed. Maybe this is just a feature of that flavor of practice, or maybe Trungpa is just not doing the reader a lot of favors in summarizing these doctrines.

But there is an underlying jewel of truth which shines through even when smeared with mud, and therein lies the difficulty of giving a rating to this kind of book. The text is peppered with gems of Buddhist thought and literature. The teacher opens avenues for progress and signposts of danger, perhaps in spite of himself. My worry is that this kind of book trades one extreme for another. It cautions against the accidental cultivation and expansion of ego at the expense underestimating the vital necessity of discernment, responsibility, and study. To the uninitiated skeptic it will be un-compelling. To the converted it will seem either seductive or insidious. On the whole I don't think I would recommend it unless I knew a lot about who I was recommending it to, and how they would take it. At times, Trungpa reminds me of the bad professor of a "weeding" course in a STEM major. He seems more concerned with culling the herd and establishing single-minded devotion than with maintaining the well-being or cultivating the success of his students as they select their own path. Most of his explanations are hand-waving, although occasionally something useful comes through. But is this really the best way to learn? I'm not so sure.

[Kamakana · Rating 4 out of 5]

210325: very insightful. idea of ‘spiritual materialism’ resonates, as i often think of how many buddhist philosophy texts read as if accomplishing something. i have read a lot in the same way i used to study anything: my mind would gradually absorb, understand, grasp. i follow the argument for finding ‘spiritual friend’ (guru) useful but my appreciation of buddhist thought remains philosophical and i do not have interest in Tibetan version...

'spiritual materialism' is the tendency to 'reify' (make concrete) as if spiritual awareness, in this case buddhist, could be a 'thing' that you can 'achieve'. this text is actually more about pitfalls to avoid in the process of enlightenment, starting with mistaken attitude of ego, self-deception, over-reliance on guru etc, than the usual discourses on buddhist thought i have read. i could imagine being at one of these lectures, being with other inquisitive searchers, and moved to ask informed questions, as this is not introductory but requires some familiarity...

there are lists and descriptions of actual buddhist practices/cosmology, from the usual five skandhas, four noble truths (there is suffering, there is cause for suffering, there is cure for suffering, this is the cure), to the Tibetan, six paramitas (discipline, energy, generosity, meditation, patience, knowledge), six realms (gods, jealous gods, human, animal, hell, hungry ghosts), there are interesting q and a sections at the end of each chapter, which were delivered as lectures at buddhist centre in 1973, and have not dated. i recognized many of the themes, as it builds the arguments from first the need to overcome/avoid the urge of ‘ego’ to enter everything including spirituality, through need to ‘surrender’ to guru/what is, to brief on mahayana interpretation and ‘form is emptiness, emptiness is form’, ending with details of necessary ‘tantra’ beyond ‘shunyata’...

more
Buddhism: A Philosophical Approach
What the Buddha Thought
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
Nietzsche and Buddhist Philosophy
Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis
Empty Words: Buddhist Philosophy and Cross-Cultural Interpretation
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Ethics Embodied: Rethinking Selfhood Through Continental, Japanese, and Feminist Philosophies
Self, No Self?: Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age

[Melmcbride · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the most important books I've read in my life. I highly recommend it to anyone considering Buddhism. Trungpa asks important questions about the motivation for faith in a materialist culture. For example, are you drawn to Buddhism because it's got a nice aesthetic or because you are ready to commit to some very difficult spritual practice?

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was not until I moved to Boulder Colorado, Trungpa's last home after his Tibetan exile that understood why he was so insitent on teaching Americans about how shallow we are in our various approachs to the embodying the wisdom of the East. This text is designed as a sort of feedback mechanism for all the smarmy, new age, old school, rightous Americans who might be confusing the soil of India with Nirvana or the black robed Zen Roshi with the definative expression of kindness. Hard reading for the honestly inclined. Materialism in this text is not described so much as a thing but more often an attitude, such as, she GOT enlightened.

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Не шибко заметная классика рок-н-ролльной эзотерики 70-х — и книга остается таковой и сейчас, почти полвека спустя, поражая внятностью и чистотой высказывания (человечество за эти полвека ничему, конечно, не научилось и по-прежнему далеко от просветления, но не только поэтому – к ней приникают все новые люди, да и тем, кто в теме, напомнить кое-что не мешает никогда). А помнить, что это не только полезное наставление, но и своего рода исторический документ, стоит еще и потому, что во многом этот дискурс порожден духовным кризисом, грянувший после распада т.н. «лета любви», когда духовная революция попросту не свершилась, и требовалось напоминать о способах преодоления этого самого «духовного материализма». Отсюда и часть пафоса этого высказывания для западного читателя/слушателя. Голос учителя, раздавшийся тогда был не единственным, но все же одним из немногих.
Ну и, конечно, признак эпохи в том, что слово «хинаяна» тогда еще не было неполиткорректным.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could have been so much more than it was. I was really excited by the summaries on Amazon from people who had read this book, and so I ordered the book right away when I discovered it. Unfortunately, the structure of the presentation leaves so much to be desired that I almost gave up about halfway through the book.

Based on the reviews I had seen and the title of the book, I was expecting a book with a straightforward premise that it is trying to argue regarding the pitfalls of spiritual approaches that connect the idea of self-improvement with spiritual growth. Instead, this book is a series of lectures given in 1970-1971, so my hopes for a tight argument pretty much had to go out the window.

Even worse, most of the argumentation was presented initially through metaphor. I got lost somewhere in the middle when the monkey decided to live in a house with no exits, all the while ramming himself into the walls that he made real. All the talk of monkey realms, human realms, realms of passion, etc., really detracted from my desire and ability to pay any attention to the lecturer.

I realize that these metaphors probably come from Buddhist traditions that were developed centuries ago, and that in those days metaphor was a powerful teaching tool that compensated for a lack of specialized vocabulary to describe spiritual and psychological phenomena in an straightforward manner. On the other hand, the lecturer could have made his argument much clearer had he just presented the main idea of his argument in each lecture, which he then backed up with metaphors to describe the process he is discussing. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy many parts of the book, but it would be better described as a metaphorical meandering through our dualistic existence, which results from ego, with the goal of arriving at a non-dualistic existence.

[Rochelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a re-read. First time I read it, I was seeking spiritual truth. Well, to be honest, it was very difficult, very layered. I read it to get something out of it, and was very disappointed. 2nd time through, I happened to be cleaning my book shelf up, and it fell out and open to a page on experiencing anger. I was just drawn in, and discovered to my delight that rereading this book was an entirely different experience. Straightforward, exact, precise, a joy to read, and a great pleasure. I was literally up until wee hours and awake at wee hours. Couldn't put it down.
Not unlike air for breathing, I highly recommend it for anyone considering starting a spiritual practice, or who just has an interest in Buddhism from the Tibetan perspective.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

The concept of Spiritual materialism is very powerful. Not sure I fully understand it yet. After reading the book I immediately wanted to go back and reread it, because I know I will get a lot more out of it. Seldom do I read a book twice and then it is usually because I have forgotten I've already read it.
This may be a volume I pick up and add to my library so that I can high light passages in it. If I understand it right, Spiritual materialism applies not just to Buddhism, but to all spiritual practices. It is were the Ego gets bound up in the rewards of the practice and then gets in the way of making real advancement.

Recommend this book to spiritual seekers.

[Michelle Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book in 2004 and let it sit on my bookshelf in California, Austin, then Guatemala until finally reading it this spring. It's the kind of book I want to reread as soon as I finish.

Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa clearly explains how "walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle process; it is not something to jump into naively. There are numerous sidetracks which lead to a distorted, ego-centered version of spirituality," and how to avoid these pitfalls on the path to enlightenment.

[daemyra, the realm's delight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spirituality can easily become corrupted of its original purpose, its language co-opted for material gain. In the modern age, we talk of decolonizing spirituality from systems of oppression, meaning we are critical of being sold spiritual knowledge and experiences, through mentorships, programs, and products by people who often do not have sincere or ancestral connections to the practice.

Chogyam Trungpa's "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" is an interesting read on the misunderstandings and misconceptions we may have about our spiritual practice, although he discusses Buddhism, this is applicable to all paths. What is sometimes not focused on when we talk about how spirituality can go awry is not so much the obvious bad (capitalism, appropriation/theft, abuse) but the seeker who wants to feel good all the time, and that is what I thought was most unique, and an indicator of the times (the west and alternative faiths in the 1970s).

I always appreciate reminders on how to approach practice, as there are many pitfalls and traps for seekers. As the introduction by Trungpa's son shares, "he wanted to raise people's awareness to a level where they could distinguish between what is genuine spiritual progress and what is ego hijacking spirituality for its own purposes."

After discussing spiritual materialism and how it turns spirituality into decorative lifestyle to feed our sense of self, I appreciated his urging for seekers to be open, to know it is hard, and to have a sense of humour about the path. In this section of the book, he also shares how to be with your guru or teacher as a spiritual friend, acknowledging the different stages of how we have a tendency to relate to them.

Trungpa will share key metaphors used in Buddhist literature, such as in the development of ego and the Five Skandhas (Heaps) where he mentions the well-known metaphor of a monkey locked in an empty house with five windows that represent the five senses. We are with the monkey as he moves through the six realms (Hell, Animal, Human, Asura (Jealous Gods), Deva Loka (Gods), Formless Gods). I love the metaphor of the moon shining on one hundred bowls of water and how it is expanded upon through the chapters to discuss the open way, compassion, and the Bodhisattva path. There are some beautiful teachings on true compassion and opening that I find myself rereading with deeper insight each time.

NOTE: I found out after reading the book that Chogyam Trungpa is a controversial figure with a tainted legacy due to his heavy drinking, sleeping with female students... I commit to learning more about this and I am leaving my review as is for now.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books that really needs to be read many times throughout the course of a life... it will reveal new things each time. Many books provide comfort or guidance, this one is like a mirror and what you see in it depends on how much you are willing to see... and what you see isn't often very pretty.

[Devashish Sharma · Rating 1 out of 5]

He gives greatest quotes.
He knows (seems) it all.
........
but i beg to differ.
as i could not see the light.
as i could not see the love.
it certainly could be my fault because of my limited understanding.
.........
great book if you want to get the overview of tibeto-buddhist spirituality.
not the best one if you want feel the light in your veins.
.........

[Gerardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

(IN SPANISH BELOW)

Cutting through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa is clearly divided into two halves: the first one, which could also be called "Cutting through Spiritual Mumbo-Jumbo" deals with the perils and traps that come during the spiritual path as a manifestation of the everlasting desire of the ego to pervade every single aspect of a person's life. In this aspect, Trungpa masterfully puts his audience (us) in its place in almost every wrong road they may have taken during their (our) limited spiritual path, clearly exposing how and why this happened, and the way to overcome it. Never before have I felt such a sense of being talked to by a book in terms of telling me not what to think about myself or my practice as with this one.

In the second part, Trungpa discusses fundamental topics of Mahayana Buddhism, such as the Six Realms of existence, the Paramitas, Sunyata and even Tantra. The thing is, though very engaging at times, Trungpa's innovative style of presenting these topics does not click with him - not completly. Please don't get me wrong: I do love his irony, his straightforwardness and his vast knowledge, which he manages with such dexterity to convey in an accessible manner. No; what I do not like is when he starts redefining traditional concepts in a way the Western audience will be more likely to understand it and integrate it into their existing schemas. And, in my very humble opinion, this may lead to a number of misinterpretations which can eventually lead to people falling into the errors presented in the first half - namely, being so concerned about embodying the characteristics and attributes Trungpa explains that you end up with a massive ego clad in spiritual gibberish (not Trungpa's, but their misinterpretation).

That's why I'm not giving this book five stars. As with "Shambhala", I find the way of presenting the teachings very exciting and, especially, inspiring, but no concise instructions about how to integrate them into everyday life are provided. That's precisely one of the things that makes me love Tibetan Buddhism - how detailed is every step of the path, how you are provided with specific practices for each and every one of them. On the contrary, here Trungpa tends to use instructions as "just completly surrender to what already is" and/or "completly let go of any conceptions and just be" (just paraphrasing here). My question is here is, how? How do I do that? How do I achieve that state ? I must also add that this book is an edited collection of transcripts of a series of talks Trungpa gave in 1970 and 1971 to a very specific set of audiences, and thus it might be understandable that he spoke what he spoke in the way that he did for a very good reason - to benefit that very audience. Thus, in taking the context out of the teaching in the form of a book, the issues I find troublesome (at least, for me) are more or less bound to happen.

In any case, I strongly recommend this book to anyone intersted in seriously pursuing any spiritual path (first half of it), reviewing already familiar Buddhist concepts (second part), or to anyone wishing to read one of the greatest, most challenging Tibetan Buddhist teachers of the 20th Century.



Más allá del Materialismo Espiritual, de Chogyam Trungpa, está clarametne dividido en dos partes: la primera, que también podría llamarse "Más allá de las tonterías espirituales" trata de los peligros y las trampas que ocurren durante el camino espirtual como manifestaciones del siempre presente deseo del ego de permear todos y cada uno de los aspectos de la vida de una persona. En este aspecto, Trungpa pone magistralmente a su público (nosotros) respecto a casi cualquier camino equivocado que puedan haber tomado durante su (nuestro) limitado camino espiritual, exponiendo claramente cómo y por qué ésto ocurrió, y la manera de superarlo. Nunca antes había sentido una sensación semejante de que un libro me estuviera hablando, en términos de decirme qué no pensar sobre mí o sobre mi práctica, como me ha ocurrido con éste.

In la segunda parte, Trungpa habla sobre los temas fundamentales del Buddhismo Mahayana, como los Seis Reinos de existencia, las Paramitas, la Vacuidad e incluso el Tantra. El asunto es que, aunque muy interesante en algunos momentos, el estilo innovador de Trungpa al presentar estos temas no termina de encajar completamente conmigo. Por favor, no me malinterpreten: me encanta su ironía, lo directo que es y el conocimiento tan vasto que tiene, que se las arregla de una manera tan diestra para transmitir de una manera accesible. No; lo que no me gusta es cuando comienza a redefinir conceptos tradicionales de manera que sea más probable que su público occidental los entienda e integre en sus esquemas. Y, en mi muy humilde opinion, esto puede llevar a un número de malinterpretaciones que pueden terminar llevando al público a caer en los errores prsentados en la primera parte - principalmente, estar tan preocupados por personificar las características y atributos que Trungpa explica que terminen con un ego gigantesco vestido con charlatanería espiritual (no la de Trungpa, sino su malinterpretación).

Por esto es que no le estoy dando a este libro cinco estrellas. Como con "Shambhala", encuentro que la manera de presentar las enseñanzas es muy interesante y, especialmente, inspiradora, pero que no se dan instrucciones concisas sobre cómo integrarlas en el día a día. Esto es precisametne una de las cosas que me hacen amar el Buddhismo Tibetano: cuán detallado está cada paso del camino, cómo se te dan prácticas específicas para todos y cada cada uno de ellos. Por el contrario, aquí Trungpa tiende a utilizar instrucciones como "tan solo ríndete a lo que ya es" y/o "suelta completamente cualquier concepción y simplemente se" (solo estoy parafraseando). Mi pregunta aquí es, ¿cómo? ¿Cómo hago eso? ¿Cómo alcanzo ese estado? También he de añadir que este libro es una colección editada de las transcripciones de una serie de charlas que Trungpa dio en 1970 y 1971 a un público muy específico, y que por lo tanto puede ser comprensible que él habló lo que habló y de la manera que lo hizo por una muy buena razón: beneficiar a ese público en concreto. Por lo tanto, al sacar el contexto de la enseñanza en la forma de un libro, los temas que encuentro problemáticos (al menos, para mí) son más o menos inevitables.

En cualquier caso, recomiendo enfáticamente este libro a cualquiera interesado en seguir cualquier camino espiritual (la primera parte del libro), revisar conceptos Buddhistas familiares (segunda parte), o para cualquiera que quiera leer a uno de los más grandes y desafiantes maestros de Buddhismo Tibetano del siglo XX.

[Richard Curry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spiritual materialism is found in any kind of religious faith, and one would not have to be a Buddhist to benefit from a discussion of it*.

Chögyam Trungpa was apparently from the same diaspora as the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet at the time the Chinese took over. He first went to the UK and then to the US, where he became guru to members of the Beat and Hippie generation. It is a series of talks from the early 1970's including transcription of questions and his answers. In lecturing he explains many schools and psychological models from the Tibetan tradition, and compares them to other traditions, such as Indian, Chinese, and Japanese, which I found interesting. I really started to enjoy the book about halfway through, when he started to discuss development of the ego, and detailed the example of a neurotic monkey inside a house. As biographical background research, I learned that Chögyam Trungpa suffered at the end of his life from the effects of overuse of alcohol, but this writing is very coherent, and erudite, and I recommend reading it.

I read this book immediately after reading Spiritual Bypassing by Robert Augustus Masters, which addresses some of the same issues.
*For a humorous and extreme example involving Christian monks in Spain, see Robert Browning's poem “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I continue to be fascinated by Buddhist thought and practice, despite not feeling quite at home in the tradition. This was an extraordinarily helpful read on a personal level. I was ready for it, I think, having hit a lot of dead ends lately in my attempts to "improve myself" via spiritual practices of one kind or another. Letting go of striving for ~particular outcomes~ is both the easiest and hardest thing in the world.

[J K Hoffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started strong, but the last third was pretty esoteric and definitely not for the casual Buddhist reader. I often felt like the author was referring to literature in Buddhism that I had not only not read, but never even heard of. I feel like I'd be better off sticking with the author's student, Pema Chodron, from now on.

[Marco Loya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sobre la espiritualidad como método de autoengaño y engrandecimiento del ego.

Un libro que mientras lo lees te dice entre líneas no me leas, aquí no están las respuestas, lo que me parece curioso.

Empieza bien enfocado en el tema y ahonda demasiado para mi gusto en el budismo tibetano. Muy interesante pero con información de más siento

[Mr. Roboto · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just can't get down with this one. Maybe it's bad timing on my part.

[The Esoteric Jungle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was recommended by Steve Jobs as being among the top 12 all time best of all the books he’d ever come across:
https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/12...

[Kitap · Rating 5 out of 5]

We must surrender our hopes and expectations, as well as our fears, and march directly into disappointment, work with disappointment, go into it, and make it our way of life, which is a very hard thing to do. Disappointment is a good sign of basic intelligence. It cannot be compared to anything else: it is so sharp, precise, obvious, and direct. If we can open, then we suddenly begin to see that our expectations are irrelevant compared with the reality of the situations we are facing. This automatically brings a feeling of diasppointment.

Disappointment is the best chariot to use on the path of the dharma. It does not confirm the existence of our ego and its dreams. (29)

The Buddha... was not a religious fanatic, attempting to act in accordance with some high ideal. He just dealt with people simply, openly, and very wisely. His wisdom came from transcendental common sense. His teaching was sound and open.

The problem seems to be that people worry about a conflict between the religious and the profane. They find it very difficult to reconcile so-called higher consciousness with practical affairs. but the categories of higher and lower, religious and profane, do not really seem relevant a basically sane approach to life. (56)

We have so many different defense mechanisms fashioned out of the knowledge we have received, the reading we have done, the experiences we have undergone, the dreams we have dreamed. But finally we being to question what spirituality means really. Is is simply a matter of attempting to be religious, pious, and good? Or is it trying to know more than other people, trying to learn more about the significance of life? What does it really mean, spirituality? (65)

Eventually we must give up trying to be something special. (68)

If one searches for any kind of bliss or joy, the realization of one's imagination and dream, then, equally, one is going to suffer failure and depression. This is the whole point: a fear of separation, the hope of attaining union, these are not just manifestations of of or the actions of ego or self-deception, as if ego were somehow a real thing which performed certain actions. Ego is the fear of losing openness, the fear of losing the egoless state. This is the meaning of self-deception, in this case—these are the ongoing action of the dream of ego, the self-perpetuatng, self-maintaining structure which is self-deception. (80–1)

The problem is that we tend to seek an easy and painless answer. but this kind of solution does not apply to the spiritual path, which many of us should ot have begun at all. One we commit ourselves to the spiritual path, it is very painful and we are in for it. We have committed ourselves to the pain of exposing ourselves, to taking off our clothes, our skin, nerves, heart, brain, until we are exposed to the universe. Nothing will be left. It will be terrible, excruciating, but that its the way it is. (93–4)

Q. Is it absolutely necessary that the spiritual friend be a living human being?

A. Yes. Any other "being" with whom you might think yourself communicating would be imaginary.

Q. Would the teachings of Christ in themselves be a spiritual friend?

A. I would not say so. That is an imaginary situation. It is the same with any teachings; they do not have to be the teachings of Christ necessarily. The problem is that we can interpret them ourselves. that is the whole point: written teachings are always open to the interpretation of ego. (101–2)

The spiritual friend might accentuate our pain in certain circumstances. That is part of the physician-patient relationship. The idea is not to regard the spiritual path as something very luxurious and pleasurable but to see it as just facing the facts of life. (103–4)

The best and most correct way of presenting the idea of compassion is in terms of clarity, clarity which contains fundamental warmth. At this stage, your meditation practice is the act of trusting in yourself. As your practice becomes more prominent in daily life activities, you begin to trust yourself and have a compassionate attitude. Compassion in this sense is not feeling sorry for someone. It is basic warmth. As much space and clarity as there is, there is that much warmth as well, some delightful feeling of positive things happening in yourself constantly. Whatever you are doing, it is not regarded as a mechanical drag in terms of self-conscious meditation, but meditation is a delightful and spontaneous thing to do. It is the continual at of making friends with yourself. (113)

Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people, because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy. They recharge your energy, because in the process of relating to them, you acknowledge your wealth, your richness. So, if you have difficult tasks to perform, such as dealing with people or life situations, you do not feel as if you are running out of resources. Each time you are faced with a difficult task it presents itself as a delightful opportunity to demonstrate your richness, your wealth. there is no feeling of poverty at all in this approach to life. (115–6)

[M]any people make the mistake of thinking that, since ego is the root of suffering, the goal of spirituality must be to conquer and destroy ego. They struggle to eliminate ego's heavy hand but, as we discovered earlier, that struggle is merely another expression of ego. We go around and around, trying to improve ourselves through struggle, until we realize that the ambition to improve ourselves is itself the problem. Insights come only when there are gaps in our struggle, only when we strop trying to rid ourselves of thought, when we cease siding with pious, good thoughts against bad, impure thought, only when we allow ourselves simply to see the nature of thought. (180)

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't just about spiritual materialism. There are plenty of other topics covered.
I hadn't been too thrilled about some of Trungpa's other books but this one was impressive.
This book wasn't perfect (I didn't like some of the chapters or the Q&A sections at the end of most chapters), but I will reread it if I can't find a better Trungpa work.

[Beverly Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book for those people on just about any spiritual path, but particularly those who follow Eastern philosophy. Chogyam Trunga wrote this book for his students who were so into attaining enlightenment, nirvana, etc, they began thinking they didn't need to care for themselves on the earth plane (i.e, feeding oneself, washing, sleeping, etc,). In short, they were becoming becoming a bit too self-righteous, which is rather at odds with the philosophy itself. Trungpa became alarmed at this reaction, as to him, it appeared as a form of spiritual egotism or "materialism" if you will. His students questioned "Why take care of our physical selves, when the attainment of enlightenment promises a transcendence of this earthly existence and all its attendant woes, including death? Why not aid the process?" Really?

According to Chogyam Trungpa's teachings and eastern philosophical thought in general, we are all here on this plane and in these bodies, leading these lives for a reason; the main reason being the we are charged with taking the best care of our bodies that we can so we may learn well from and meet head-on whatever challenges life, Karma and our relationship to Maya may set before us.

Quite simply why would you think it would happen faster or more reverently if you cease to live? Clearly there's so much more to the book than what I reviewed here, but to me, it remains one of the quintessential works on eastern philosophical thought and practice for the western world and everyone else...