Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

The book records two lecture series given in 1970-71. It opens by looking at the numerous ways people entangle themselves in spiritual materialism, and at the self-deceptions that seekers can stumble into. Having surveyed these detours, it goes on to describe the genuine spiritual path. The approach offered is a classical Buddhist one, not formal but concerned with the essence of Buddhist spirituality. Though the Buddhist way is non-theistic, it does not conflict with theistic traditions; the two differ in emphasis and method, and spiritual materialism's difficulties are shared by all disciplines.

Why You Should Read?

• Learn how seekers can deceive themselves in numerous ways while pursuing spiritual materialism.
• Discover what the book presents as the genuine spiritual path, after its survey of detours.
• Explore why a non-theistic Buddhist approach does not contradict theistic traditions.
• Understand how the difficulties of spiritual materialism apply across all spiritual disciplines, as the book argues.

About the Author

Chögyam Trungpa was a Tibetan Buddhist master holding both Kagyu and Nyingma lineages. Tibetan Buddhists and other practitioners and scholars regarded him as a leading teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. He helped spread Buddhism in the West, founding Vajradhatu and Naropa University. A tertön, the supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, and a scholar, teacher, poet and artist who originated the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, he translated many Tibetan Buddhist texts and brought Vajrayana teachings to the West. Controversy in his lifetime and after included heavy drinking, sexual predation, and ordering the forced stripping of a student and his girlfriend.