The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven Read Online Free PDF Page A

might ask. But we don’t actually go beyond that. Instead of trying to go beyond it, we try to get into it. (“Ordinary Truth”)
     
    According to Rinpoche, symbolism itself is also a path, not just a result: “Symbolism is a question of gaining new sight. It is being extremely inquisitive to see things in their own nature, not always wanting to change things.” Through his or her appreciation of symbolism, the artist participates in and connects with a sacred world. Sacredness is both part of the process and part of the outcome: what the artist sees and experiences. Through the process of appreciating the inherent symbolism of reality, the artist sees the world as a sacred place, and his or her activity becomes sacred activity. Rinpoche often talked about this as connecting with basic goodness and as experiencing and creating harmony and richness. He also connected it with the artist’s role in the creation of enlightened society. In an interview about one of his dharma art installations, “Art of Simplicity: Discovering Elegance,” he said, “Dharma art is the principal way we are trying to create enlightened society, which is a society where there is no aggression, and where people could discover their innate basic goodness and enlightened existence, whether it is in a domestic or political or social situation.”
    We turn now to the specific consideration of the artistic disciplines that Chögyam Trungpa worked with in America. In looking at the various disciplines that Rinpoche both practiced and taught about, we will see more about the development of his ideas on art and creativity.
     
    P OETRY
     
    When Chögyam Trungpa arrived in America in 1970, he had been writing poetry for many years. In “Tibetan Poetics,” a 1975 conversation with Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, which was published in 1976 in Loka II : A Journal from the Naropa Institute , Rinpoche talks at length about the classical style of Tibetan poetry in which he was trained and how it used very formal language, metaphors, and set line lengths. He compares the classical poetry with the more colloquial style employed by Milarepa and other great spiritual teachers to convey what Rinpoche calls “songs of their own experience.” He also describes his own approach to writing poetry in Tibetan in the West, in which he continued to employ classical line lengths, as well as some use of rhyme and puns. He contrasts his Tibetan poems with the approach he adopted to writing in English: “I just regard the poems that I write in English as finger painting, in my mind.” The vast majority of the poems he wrote in America were written in English in this free style, influenced more by the poets he met in America than by the classical training of his upbringing.
    Rinpoche encountered the American poetry scene soon after he arrived in the United States. He and Allen Ginsberg ran across one another in New York in 1970. 12 Rinpoche and Ginsberg encountered one another as they were both trying to hail the same taxicab in Manhattan. Ginsberg was introduced to Rinpoche by one of Rinpoche’s companions, while they were standing on the street, and upon learning who Rinpoche was, Ginsberg spoke the Vajra Guru mantra of Padmasambhava, “ OM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM ,” and clasped his hands in a traditional bow or salutation. Rinpoche, who was with his wife, Diana, and their companion invited Ginsberg and his ailing father to share the cab. After dropping Ginsberg’s father at his apartment, they continued on to Allen’s place, where they stayed up into the night talking, writing poetry, and becoming friends. When later they knew each other better, Ginsberg asked Rinpoche what he thought of being greeted by this mantra, and Rinpoche replied that he wondered whether Allen had known what he was talking about. 13
    This chance meeting led to an enduring friendship, collaboration, and a teacher-student relationship. On the Buddhist front, Rinpoche was the