The Lute of Unceasing Sound-Emptiness: Song of the Eternal Bön View
We are pleased to announce our new publication, The Lute of Unceasing Sound-Emptiness: Song of the Eternal Bön View. It features the translation of a song in praise of the Bön view, which the Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche wrote during his youth in Tibet.
The Sadhana of Mahamudra and “Mamo Chant” describe how “the sacred mantra has strayed into Bön,” which makes Bön sound problematic. So it may come as a surprise to learn that the Vidyadhara had a deep knowledge of the ancient Bön tradition of Tibet. And it had a major influence on his teaching, especially in his presentation of Shambhala. He was a Bön tertön who discovered Bön termas, one of which still survives.
In addition to the song, this volume contains (1) a detailed essay on the Bön tradition written by the Vidyadhara himself, (2) an overview of his relationship with the Bön lineage, (3) a memoir of how some of these teachings were introduced in the West, and (4) a commentary on the song, based on our work with Karma Senge Rinpoche and Surmang Khenpo.
The book is perfect bound with a cover painting by the Vidyadhara never before published.
82 pp.
Published by The Nalanda Translation Committee....https://www.nalandatranslation.org/
From 1975 to 1987, the Translation Committee’s initial work included daily chants, the Karma Kagyu ngondro, and the Vajrayogini and Chakrasamvara sadhanas. The equally important work of providing examples of realization from our lineage, such as the vajra songs and life stories of great teachers, resulted in The Rain of Wisdom and The Life of Marpa the Translator. As the Vidyadhara’s own life and teachings evolved, we worked with him in translating the unique and special terma of Shambhala that the Vidyadhara received as well as the Shambhala liturgies he composed.
Born in the Nangchen region of Tibet in March 1939, Chögyam Trungpa was eleventh in the line of Trungpa tülkus, important figures in the Kagyu lineage, one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Among his three main teachers were Jamgon Kongtrul of Sechen, HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and Khenpo Gangshar.
The name Chögyam is a contraction of Chökyi Gyamtso (Tibetan: ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: Chos-kyi Rgya-mtsho), which means "Ocean of Dharma". Trungpa (Tibetan: དྲུང་པ་, Wylie: Drung-pa) means "attendant". He was deeply trained in the Kagyu tradition and received his khenpo degree at the same time as Thrangu Rinpoche; they continued to be very close in later years. Chögyam Trungpa was also trained in the Nyingma tradition, the oldest of the four schools, and was an adherent of the ri-mé ("nonsectarian") ecumenical movement within Tibetan Buddhism, which aspired to bring together and make available all the valuable teachings of the different schools, free of sectarian rivalry.
At the time of his escape from Tibet, Trungpa was head of the Surmang group of monasteries.
On April 23, 1959, twenty-year-old Trungpa set out on an epic nine-month escape from his homeland.Masked in his account in Born in Tibet to protect those left behind, the first, preparatory stage of his escape had begun a year earlier, when he fled his home monastery after its occupation by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). After spending the winter in hiding, he decided definitively to escape after learning that his monastery had been destroyed. Trungpa started with Akong Rinpoche and a small party of monastics, but as they traveled people asked to join until the party eventually numbered 300 refugees, from the elderly to mothers with babies – additions which greatly slowed and complicated the journey. Forced to abandon their animals, over half the journey was on foot as the refugees journeyed through an untracked mountain wilderness to avoid the PLA. Sometimes lost, sometimes traveling at night, after three months’ trek they reached the Brahmaputra River. Trungpa, the monastics and about 70 refugees managed to cross the river under heavy gunfire, then, eating their leather belts and bags to survive, they climbed 19,000 feet over the Himalayas before reaching the safety of Pema Ko. After reaching India, on January 24, 1960 the party was flown to a refugee camp.
Shiwa Okar is featured in a work composed by Chögyam Trungpa, particularly a long verse epic composed in Tibet called The Golden Dot: The Epic of the Lha, the Annals of the Kingdom of Shambhala, and in terma he revealed beginning in 1976. The Golden Dot was lost in Trungpa Rinpoche's flight from Tibet in 1959.
Trungpa Rinpoche began to reconstruct the original text after escaping Tibet, and it is this later work to which we refer. The first chapter describes the creation of the world by nine cosmic gods (shrid[sic] pa 'i lha) who appear in the form of native Tibetan deities known as drala (dgra bla), or war gods. These gods represent primal or originary aspects of the phenomenal world. For example, one of these lha stood for all kinds of light. Glancing in many directions, this deity created all of the lights existing in the world, including the sun, the moon, the light of the planets and stars, and the inward luminosity of consciousness itself. Another represented space and the sense of direction ... In Trungpa Rinpoche's epic these were directed by a ninth lha called Shiwa Okar ... a sort of absolute principle behind creation and the nature of reality. After these nine cosmic deities have created the world, [Shiwa Okar] goes to the things they have created and invests each one with an animistic spirit, a drala.
Trungpa..."The Pon Way of Life" in Himalayan Anthropology...Himalayan anthropology: The Indo-Tibetan interface (World anthropology) ...1978 (Reprinted in "The Heart of the Buddha": 1991)
"Shambhala, as originally proclaimed by Chögyam Trungpa, states that "there is a natural source of radiance and brilliance in the world, which is the innate wakefulness of human beings. This is the basis, in myth and inspiration, of the Kingdom of Shambhala, an enlightened society of fearlessness, dignity and compassion." Furthermore, Shambhala vision applies to people of any faith, not just people who believe in Buddhism... the Shambhala vision does not distinguish a Buddhist from a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, a Moslem, a Hindu. That's why we call it the Shambhala kingdom. A kingdom should have lots of spiritual disciplines in it.".....Trungpa, Chogyam (1999). "Great Eastern Sun - The Wisdom of Shambhala". ISBN 1-57062-293-0
John Hopkins....February 2021
Email....okarresearch@gmail.com