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1 December, 2009
Dear Friends and Supporters of the Chögyam Trungpa Legacy Project,
Almost twenty-three years after his Parinirvana, the Vidyadhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, remains one of the best-selling authors of books on meditation, Buddhism and spirituality in North America and indeed throughout the world. His latest book, published earlier this month, Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery, is currently one of the top ten bestselling Buddhist books in America, and overall his books continue to sell more than 100,000 copies each year, in more than thirty countries. Indeed, he himself is the most powerful and effective advocate for his own legacy and for the future of the Practicing Lineage in North America.
At the same time, his son and lineage holder, the Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, is propagating the Shambhala teachings and the Shambhala path that his father first laid out for us. As well, Trungpa Rinpoche’s students, all of us, are key to the preservation and propagation of his work. We help in myriad ways to make his message of gentle and profound sanity available to diverse audiences around the world.
The sole reason for the existence of the Chögyam Trungpa Legacy Project is to provide a channel and focus for this energy of Rinpoche’s students, in order to protect, preserve, and promote the wisdom teachings of the Vidyadhara. Some people have mistakenly thought that we were trying to “own” the Vidyadhara’s legacy – which is an impossibility, indeed. In fact, I would say that our mandate and our mission are almost exactly opposite of that. Our responsibility is to disown the Vidyadhara’s legacy, in the sense that we should not try to hold it as our territory but help to make it available to innumerable sentient beings who can benefit from this powerful dharma medicine.
Sometimes people question whether our view is backwards looking rather than looking towards the future. Our goal, however, is to bring together tradition and future vision and to promote the experience of the Vidyadhara’s teachings now, to preserve and protect them so that they can be experienced in the future as now, so that they don’t become purely of the past but remain ever applicable to the world as it exists.
In that respect, the establishment of a publication fund to help underwrite the expenses of editing and publishing the Vidyadhara’s books and audio/video teachings is of paramount importance. Currently, the Chögyam Trungpa Legacy Project is helping to raise the funds for the Root Text Project. This entails the publication by Shambhala Publications of Trungpa Rinpoche’s Seminary Transcripts in the form of a three-volume book, which is tentatively titled The Treasury of Wisdom. In 2010, we need to help raise the $25,000 that is needed to complete this project.
Acharya Judith Lief is the senior editor for this project. She is assisted by Ellen Kearney and members of the Nalanda Translation Committee, and I and others will also be assisting her in 2010 and 2011. Many volunteers are helping. When this three-volume work appears in 2012, the 25th Anniversary of the Vidyadhara’s Parinirvana, there will be no doubt that these teachings are still, not just relevant, but mind-blowing and enlightening now. Future publications, which will also receive assistance from our fund, have that same potential. The Vidyadhara’s teachings have a universal relevance that transcends time and space.
 In this last year, we supported the digitization of the Vidyadhara’s dharma art slides. Andy and Wendy Karr did the work, most of it volunteer. We helped provide funds for equipment and some of their labor. One of the early results of this work has been a slideshow narrated by the Karrs, which has been shown in a number of locations. For the viewers of that show, there is no doubt that these images speak to now. Many other projects have this potential.
I am writing to you today to ask for your financial support of our continuing endeavors. In addition to the projects mentioned above, our current priorities include:
1) Working with Shambhala International to plan for the 25th anniversary of the Parinirvana. Finding ways to include many Shambhala sangha members in the celebration of this important milestone, through practice programs, exhibits, performances, and other events.
2) Supporting preservation efforts by the Shambhala Archives to complete the digitization of the Dorje Kasung audio tapes, as well as other special audio and video collections. We are helping the Dorje Kasung to raise $15,000 for this work.
3) Supporting the appraisal, cataloguing, preservation, and exhibit of personal and religious items that belonged to the Vidyadhara.
4) Working with senior teachers within Shambhala to create new syllabi, courses and resources for the practice and study of Chögyam Trungpa’s teachings.
5) Completing the Legacy Project website.
6) Inaugurating a Chögyam Trungpa Memorial Lecture.
7) Providing small grants to projects that promote the Vidyadhara’s legacy, and
8) Establishing a Virtual Archive and Library, with other partners in the Shambhala sangha.
Thank you for all the ways in which you support the legacy of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Please help our efforts as a donor or volunteer! Some of our projects are large, requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete, such as the Virtual Archives. Others, however, are extremely modest. We gave several grants under $1,000 each this year to projects where a small amount can make a huge difference. So your contribution need not be large to be appreciated. If you would like more information on projects or their budgets, please let me know.
Yours in the vast legacy of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche,
Carolyn Rose Gimian
Director
On behalf of the Chogyam Trungpa Legacy Project Advisory Board:
Richard Reoch, President, Shambhala International; Sara Bercholz; Helen Bonzi; Jane Carpenter-Cohn; Walter Fordham; Wendy Karr; Judith Lief; Thomas Hast; Larry Mermelstein; David Rome; Miriam Tarcov.
How To Make Your Donation
All donations are tax deductible charitable donations in either the United States or Canada. In the United States, please send checks made out to the Chogyam Trungpa Legacy Project to:
Chogyam Trungpa Legacy Prject
c/o Ashoka Credit Union
525 Canyon Boulevard
Boulder, Colorado 80302
In Canada please send your checks to:
Chogyam Trungpa Legacy project
C/O Halifax Shambhala Center
1084 Tower Road
Halifax, NS B3H2Y5
For other options, such as auto withdrawal and VISA, please contact Carolyn Gimian: cgimian@suchns.com
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