Re: Wrong Focus (Was: Wrong Question)

George Cherry wrote:

He was not a cult leader, in fact he behaved in ways that discouraged
cultishness from what I have heard, from his actual students. He
drank and he smoked, and he picked a despot for a successor when he
died.

But I wonder, if he was awake and aware, why
he chose unwise behaviors. What's going on?

Good question. If his teachings were so powerful, if they had the ability to liberate, if he was an enlightened master and the 11th reincarnation of some Tibetan guy, why didn't he listen to his own teachings? How did he fail with the one person that really mattered while apparently helping (and hurting) so many others? My wife has been clean and sober for 20 years now, so I have experienced first hand the sorts of introspection and mental discipline that it takes to deal maturely, openly, publicly, and effectively with a disease like alcoholism. What was it about Trungpa, the social setting he lived in, and the "friends" who let him drink himself to death, such that he could teach what he taught yet engage in the behavior he engaged in?

I think these are serious questions, and not mere destructive gossip, that any person would want to be fully prepared to ask of any person/teacher they may enter into a spiritual teaching relationship with.


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