Great Eastern Sun

Im a student of Shambhala/Trungpa Rinpoche, and I highly recommend this to anyone needing spiritual uplifting and grounding no matter what your path is. It provides an inspiring and heartbreaking approach to awakening and embracing life and ourselves, touching our own fundamental goodness. A constant companion from one of the great masters and beings to walk this earth.

I find this presentation of Trungpa's Shambhala vision much more intimate and satisfying than the first book, Shambhala. Both books offer clear and practical advice transparently; Great Eastern Sun leaves more of the edges and contrasts in the foreground, giving a more nuanced taste of the good times at Trungpa's house. This is a very rewarding volume, and as the other reviewers have noted, it's good to read this one more than once. (Really, that goes for all serious reading. Real books are not one-time-use disposables.) That said, I would like to follow up on one of Trungpa's suggestions in Great Eastern Sun: "It would be worth investigation futher the origins of Shambhala vision in the European traditions... to conduct a study of Western historical figures who tried to achieve the Shambhala vision of englightened society" (p 134). Okay. Trungpa's contemporaries, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, had a vision of their own, and one quite resonant with Trungpa's: "Learning to undo things, and to undo onesself, is proper to the war machine: the 'not doing' of the warrior, the undoing of the subject" (A Thousand Plateaus p 400). So long, neurosis. I'm a bit disappointed that some of Trungpa's actual words (the dreaded 'f-word' for one) were edited from this volume. Trungpa, like Joseph Conrad and V Nabokov, was a second-language master of the English tongue, and chose his words very carefully for impact. He chose punchiness in his diction, he took a risk; why pretend he played it safe? Here's to Trungpa's successes, and to the birth pangs of a culture of englightenment. Cheers! HOMAGE TO ACALA VIDHYARAJA, the Immoveable Radiant King! Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharosana sphotaya hum trat ham mam!

"The Great Eastern Sun" is presented as a companion volume to Chogyam Trungpa's spiritual classic "Shambhala: The Sacred Art of the Warrior."Both books were based on Trungpa's talks, but "The Great Eastern Sun" has suffered (or benefitted) from a much lighter editorial hand. The result is that the present volume preserves a stronger flavor of Trungpa's teaching style. On the other hand, the talks in this book were intended for a more advanced audience who were presumed to be already familiar with the material presented in the earlier book.My experience of Trungpa's books has always been one of a cumulative effect. It helps to read, to practice, to read again, and to practice some more. The extraordinary nature of the teachings grow clearer with time and practice, although sometimes very little comes through on the first reading.

Chogyam Trungpa uses the Great Eastern Sun as a metaphor for liberation. It is always rising, and "there is always the potential for human beings to discover their own goodness and the sacredness of the world" (p. xvi). It represents "the dawn of wakefulness" (p. 151), and "overcoming frivolity and becoming a decent person" (p. 161). Conversely, the world in which people are "sleeping in their cocoons trying to avoid the pain of death is called the setting-sun world" (p. 9). Trungpa observes that the setting-sun world is synonymous with having a "groovy" time, trying to avoid the reality of impermanence (p. 162). The basic goal of Trungpa's Eastern Sun teachings is "to radiate the peacefulness of nonaggression, learning how to develop discipline and wisdom, and developing the wisdom of body, speech, and mind" (pp. 50-51). Trungpa encourages us to take care of the world, and also have a sense of humor (p. 210). "Listen to your own brook, echoing yourself" (p. 123). For some enlightening reading, I recommend Trungpa's GREAT EASTERN SUN. G. Merritt

Carolyn Gimian has done a wonderful job of sculpting a body of work that speaks to the essence of Shambhala Training and warriorship. She has painted a genuine portrait of Chogyam Trungpa through his training methodologies, poems, talks, and personal history. The book contains reference information for those readers who may want to pursue Shambhala Training, in their own quest to embrace life through direct participation. I would recommend this book to all students of Shambhala, present and future.