Go West, Young Buddha: Chögyam Trungpa, Skillful Means, and Spiritual Authority in Modern America

This paper examines Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s career teaching Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism in modern America. Though he made claims to spiritual authority in order to argue that his unusual behavior stemmed from the pedagogical technique of skillful means (Sanskrit: upāyakaualya, often shortened to upāya), Trungpa’s life was marked by controversy. I recount his training in Tibet and successes in America, noting especially Trungpa’s prestigious lineage and the unprecedented task he faced in bringing Buddhism to the West. I then survey sutras and secondary scholarship in order to understand philosophical and hagiographical conceptions of skillful means in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism over the past two millennia. These texts demonstrate that enlightened individuals often adopted antinomian behavior, particularly within Vajrayana lama-student relationships. I then explore why many Americans objected so strongly to Trungpa’s seemingly unconventional morality, and describe how he presented his behavior as consistent with the ideals that skillful means call for. I argue that people generally accepted Trungpa’s methods if they considered his claims to spiritual authority to be legitimate, those who rejected his authority viewed him with more suspicion. Trungpa and his skeptics, therefore, used a range of tactics to reinforce or discredit, respectively, his assertions of spiritual authority. Westerners’ opinions on Trungpa were not neatly divisible into camps of supporters and enemies, but rather formed a nuanced spectrum based on multiple philosophical and cultural considerations. I argue that Trungpa greatly shaped how westerners approach the idea of skillful means. His teachings and lifestyle were instrumental in establishing upāya’s justificatory powers and scope. Nevertheless Americans, especially non-Buddhists, placed limits on what behavior is acceptable for Vajrayana gurus. The scope and limits of skillful means are still greatly debated, and often ambiguous