A Special Celebration of
The Life and Teachings of
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

ON THE 38TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS PARINIRVANA

Friday, April 4th, 7 – 9 pm ET

Please register for this event so that we know how many to expect.

Join us as we come together on the anniversary  of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s Parinirvana (passing) on April 4, 1987, for a special community gathering and reception. We will practice the Sadhana of Mahamudra, and toast Trungpa Rinpoche and his legacy.

The Sadhana of Mahamudra is an extraordinary poetic practice text that beautifully and powerfully expresses the essence of the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s teachings. The heart of this liturgical practice is the merging of the qualities of emotion and insight, energy and space, compassion and wisdom. The Sadhana also addresses the Vidyadhara's primary concern in transmitting the buddhadharma to the West: the issue of spiritual materialism — the tendency to appropriate the trappings of a spiritual practice to enhance one's personality and sense of certainty and ease; to bolster one's ego.

The Sadhana is a vajrayana liturgical practice that revitalizes spiritual inspiration and insight, especially in times of global materialism and political divisiveness. Uniquely for this kind of text, Trungpa Rinpoche offered this sadhana to students at any level of experience, not just those who have received vajrayana transmission. Usually practiced on the new and full moon in group settings, such as on retreat, the Sadhana of Mahamudra is meant to rouse inspiration to cut through all types of materialism and see our mind and the world as workable and sacred.  For more on the origins of the practice, please see this article at the Chogyam Trungpa Digital Library.

This year, this annual celebration coincides with a significant milestone: the first-ever publication of the full text of the Sadhana for a general audience, in a revised edition of the author's commentary, available at Shambhala Publications.