Westerners wanting to know about tantra - particularly the Buddhist tantra of Tibet - have often had to work with speculation and fancy. In The Dawn of Tantra the reader meets a Tibetan meditation mastre and a Western scholar whose grasp of Buddhist tantra is real and unquestionable. In their collaboration - based on a seminar given in Berkeley, California - Herbert V. Guenther and Chogyam Trungpa offer a balanced view of their subject that avoids the extremes of arid scholarship and facile psychology. In the words of Trungpa Rinpoche, "Professor Guenther and I decided that the best way for us to approach the subject of tantra together is for him to deal with the prajna, or knowledge aspect of it, and for me to deal with the upaya, the skillful means or actual application aspect of it." The resulting discussion is both true to the intent of the ancient Tibetan teachings and relevant to the everyday world of contemporary Westerners.á
The Dawn of Tantra, Guenther & Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Shambhala Publications, 92 pages, $16.95
Trungpa was born in Eastern Tibet and recognized as an incarnation of the Trungpa line at an early date. He studied with, among others, one of the reincarnations of the Jamgyon Kongtrul who wrote the most famous commentary on the Seven Points. In 1959 he fled to India in the wake of the Communist takeover in Tibet, courageously leading many of his people to safety (this period is described in his book Born in Tibet.) He came to England in the mid-sixties to study at Oxford, learned English, started to teach, and started one of the first Tibetan Buddhist centers in the West. He later dropped his monastic vows, married, and moved to America where he continued his teaching. He founded the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, a large and highly respected Buddhist university, as well as the Shambhala organization. The influence of both his teaching and his books on American Buddhism was and still is enormous.
Herbert V. Guenther is Professor Emeritus of Far Eastern Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. Among his many published works are his translation of The Life and Teaching of Naropa and The Dawn of Tantra.
One: Tantra: Its Origin and Presentation 1
Two: Laying the Foundation 6
Three: Yogacara and the Primacy of Experience 12
Four: The Mandala Principle and the Meditative Process 21
Five: The Indivisibility of Openness and Compassion 26
Six: The Development of Shunyata 34
Seven: The Guru-Disciple Relationship 41
Eight: Visualization 47
Nine: Empowerment and Initiations 53
Ten: Questions and Answers: Guenther 63
Eleven: Questions and Answers: Rinpoche 78
Chapters One, Three, Five, Seven, Nine and Ten are by Herbert V. Guenther
Chapters Two, Four, Six, Eight and Eleven are by Chögyam Trungpa
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