A Defining Moment: the Disagreement between Trungpa Rinpoché and Akong Rinpoché Concerning How the Teachings Should Be Given in Samyé Ling: continued...
Trungpa Rinpoché then moved away from Samyé Ling to a nearby property (Garwald) that, at the time, belonged to one of his close disciples. After a period of reflection, he decided to accept invitations to go to the USA and his work there since is well-documented. In 2013, Akong Rinpoché’s own reflection of the overall outcome of their disagreement was the following: “I promised His Holiness Karmapa not to say anything so my lips were sealed. As so little has been documented about this, the author would like to mention here two incidents of direct relevance. The first occurred in London in 1977, when Akong Rinpoché and myself were attending the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa during his European tour. The initial response, from Sam Bercholz of Shambhala, was to agree to His Holiness’s wishes but subsequent responses said that it would be impossible to withdraw that first print-run as it had already been distributed. There was a solemn promise to correct following prints. The explanation given for the whole tone and content of the account of events was that it had not been written by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoché himself but by his wife, Diana. It reflected her take on events. It was at this point that the Karmapa personally advised Akong Rinpoché to simply accept the unmerited bad repute that the widely-read publication would bring him, as a karmic purification, and it was then that the Karmapa swore Rinpoché to secrecy (I learned all this from private conversations with Akong Rinpoché in 1977). This was doubtless because moves were afoot to re-instate Trungpa Rinpoché, in the light of his prolific dharma works in the USA, as witnessed by the Karmapa during his recent visits. I believe that Trungpa Rinpoché had personally petitioned the Karmapa in this respect during the latter’s USA visits. The second incident I personally witnessed was a very tense afternoon when Trungpa Rinpoché and some of his key people in Europe dropped by Samyé Ling to collect the seals and objects “withheld” in the late 60s and that were now allowed, by the Karmapa, to be restored. The whole incident was kept incredibly low-profile, with none of the pomp that would normally accompany the arrival of such an eminent person. I was not allowed to attend the actual meeting but saw them come, disappear into Akong Rinpoché’s residence and leave an hour or so later. The importance of this disagreement between the two rinpochés and its consequences should not be under-estimated and this is not reported here merely as an anecdote from Akong Rinpoché’s life nor for the sake of gossip and unnecessarily stirring up the past. The two main consequences (that I witnessed) were: • Akong Rinpoché, far from being a jealous person longing to step into Trungpa Rinpoché’s shoes, as the unfortunate chapter recounted, never wanted to teach in public in Samyé Ling and refused to do so. Throughout the early 1970s, he had all public dharma teachings there were given by the various Thai, Burmese, Zen and Tibetan masters that he invited, under the Karmapa’s overall guidance. Akong Rinpoché only wanted to teach people in one-to-one interviews and even then he was only prepared to give the traditional teachings to those seriously interested and ready to commit themselves to practice. Most of the time, Akong Rinpoché could be seen doing very practical tidying and cleaning jobs around Samyé Ling, often repairing sheets and doing sewing work (at which he excelled) and seeming happy to do the most menial of tasks. It was only when there were enough dedicated, practising people asking that he gave group teachings, in a particular a five-week closed retreat in which he shared some very profound things to those prepared to accept the uncompromising conditions he imposed for it. • The need for Tibetan dharma to be established along traditional lines and in a step-by-step way in Europe was set in motion by this historic disagreement. This tradition-based orientation was to be confirmed again and again, first by Kalu Rinpoché, during his 1970 visits, then by the Karmapa during his 1974 and 1977 visits, later by the Tai Situpa and Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoché, throughout the 1980s and 1990s and subsequently by all our visiting teachers. Furthermore, the traditional approach has been even the more emphasised in recent times by the XVIIth Gyalwang Karmapa. Akong Rinpoché had made the correct choice ... for Europe, at least. .....continue reading the story, about the early 1970s in Samye Ling, here |