The transmission
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939-1987) was a Kagyu and Nyingma lineage master who, after fleeing Tibet, became one of the most influential—and controversial—figures in bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West, founding Naropa University and the Shambhala movement.
His landmark book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (1973) named a now-essential concept: spiritual materialism, the ego’s habit of co-opting spiritual practice, attainments, and insights as new possessions to fortify the very self-image that practice is meant to dissolve.
Collecting experiences, credentials, and “states” becomes just another form of acquisitiveness, leaving the ego stronger rather than transparent. He taught instead a path of fearless, unadorned awareness—“basic sanity”—that refuses to use spirituality as comfort or self-enhancement.
For the mind-power lineage, Trungpa is the indispensable internal critic. His diagnosis of spiritual materialism is the sharpest anti-bypass corrective available to the very tradition this knowledge base maps: it directly challenges the use of manifestation, “high vibration,” and consciousness-creates-reality teaching as ego-reinforcing, comfort-seeking, or reality-avoiding.
Where much of the lineage promises that mind power yields desired outcomes, Trungpa warns that wanting spiritual experience to deliver acquisitions is precisely the trap. He thus functions as a built-in check against bypassing—valuable for any honest map of these ideas—while remaining a fully authentic transmitter of Tibetan Mahamudra and Dzogchen “natural mind” teaching.
What they gave
Spiritual materialism: Named the ego’s co-opting of spiritual practice into self-enhancement—a core anti-bypass critique.
- Basic sanity / fearlessness: Taught unadorned awareness over comfort-seeking spiritual experience.
- Crazy wisdom and Shambhala: Brought Tibetan tantra and warriorship-vision into Western practice.
- Internal corrective: Provides the lineage’s strongest check against using mind-power teaching to fortify ego.
In their words
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; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques.
According to the Buddhist tradition, the spiritual path is the process of cutting through our confusion, of uncovering the awakened state of mind. When the awakened state of mind is crowded in by ego and its attendant paranoia, it takes on the character of an underlying instinct.
The point of meditation is not merely to be an honest or good person in the conventional sense, trying only to maintain our security. We must begin to become compassionate and wise in the fundamental sense, open and relating to the world as it is.
The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality.
We are speaking here of the basic goodness of being alive—which does not depend on our accomplishments or fulfilling our desires. We experience glimpses of goodness all the time, but we often fail to acknowledge them. When we see a bright color, we are witnessing our own inherent goodness.
The essence of warriorship, or the essence of human bravery, is refusing to give up on anyone or anything.
Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world.
Warriorship is a continual journey. To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life.
It is important to see that the main point of any spiritual practice is to step out of the bureaucracy of ego.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages; Mahamudra and Dzogchen; his Shambhala/warriorship vision.
- Influenced: Pema Chodron; Reginald Ray; Western Buddhism (Shambhala); the anti-bypass and “spiritual materialism” critique across modern spirituality.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism1973
- The Myth of Freedom1976
- Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior1984