CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM
By
CHOGYAM TRUNGPA
Edited by John Baker and Marvin Casper
Illustrated by Glen Eddy
The Clear Light Series
Boulder& London
SHAMBHALA
1973
CONTENTS
Introduction
Spiritual Materialism
Surrendering
The Guru
Initiation
Self-Deception
The Hard way
The Open way
Sense of Humor
The Development of Ego
The Six Realms
The Four Noble Truths
The Bodhisattva Path
Shunyata
Prajna and Compassion
Tantra
Index
INTRODUCTION
The following series of talks was given in Boulder, Colorado in the fall of 1970 and the spring of 1971. at that time we were just forming Karma Dzong, our meditation center in Boulder. Although most of my students were sincere in their aspiration to walk on the spiritual path, they brought to it a great deal of confusion, misunderstanding and expectation. Therefore, I found it necessary to present to my students an overview of the path and some warnings as to the dangers along that path.
It now seems that publishing these talks may be helpful to those who have become interested in spiritual disciplines. 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. This fundamental distortion may be referred to as spiritual materialism.
These talks first discuss the various ways in which people involve themselves with spiritual materialism, the many forms of self-deception into which aspirants may fall. After this tour of the sidetracks along the way, we discuss the broad outlines of the true spiritual path.