Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoché's dragon painting.
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Ink and mineral paints,
pure gold paint on a fine canvas.
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Chögyam
Trungpa Rinpoché is principally renowned for establishing the Buddha Dharma in
the West. In the United States of America he founded a community called
‘Vajradhatu’ which was later incorporated into the community known as ‘Shambhala
International’. He was an accomplished scholar and artist,
celebrated widely for his masterpieces. He developed a new expressive style of
Tibetan calligraphy known for its ‘nowness’, the meditative approach and the
application of the classical Japanese Zen tradition of ‘black ink on white
paper’.
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Akong and Trungpa Rinpoche on their maiden journey on a P&O
Liner from Bombay, India, Via Suez to Great Britain, suggesting this photo was taken off Gibralter. |
After
a dramatic escape from the 1959 Chinese invasion of Tibet, in 1963, at the age
of 23, Trungpa Rinpoché first arrived in the UK from India to study at Oxford.
By 1967, together with his childhood companion Akong Tulku Rinpoché, they had
established the first Tibetan Buddhist centre, Kagyu Samye Ling, in the Scottish
border country.
Whilst
in residence at Samye Ling and before a short visit to Bhutan in the spring of
1968, Trungpa Rinpoché created a unique work of art that is known as Trungpa’s
dragon painting. It stands alone in subject and style, unlike any of the Zen-like
calligraphy masterpieces that he later produced to communicate Dharma while
establishing Vajradhatu in the United States and Canada.
On Trungpa’s departure to America in 1970,
the dragon painting was left to the late Josie Wechsler (later known as Ani
Pema) one of Trungpa Rinpoche’s early students, who passed it on to another
early student, Karma Dechen Rabjor, in whose possession and
safe-keeping it remains.
In America, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoché continued a close friendship with the
late Sherab Palden Beru, one of the great Tibetan masters of the Karma Gadri art
tradition, where Trungpa commissioned Sherab Palden to paint the well-known thangka
of Vajradhara, which was for many years housed at the Boulder Shambhala
Center, Colorado.
This
rare dragon painting is composed of several symbolic aspects that Trungpa
Rinpoché explained to Josie
Wechsler directly and she passed the explanation onto Karma Dechen
Rabjor. The significances of the dragon painting outlined below is based on
this explanation by Chögyam Trungpa himself obtained from Karma Dechen Rabjor
and double checked for accuracy with the late Maggie Russell who had been
present at the time of its expalanation.
There
is no known title for this masterpiece and no calligraphy on it. It is a purely
pictorial depiction of a dragon within a volcanic landscape of movement and
colour. The first impression made by Trungpa Rinpoche’s dragon painting is of its
colourful and loose painterly quality, expressed through a watercolour application
that gives the work a contemporary Western appearance, reminiscent of the later
works of the English painter William Turner. Also uncharacteristic of the more
rigid Tibetan painting style is the energy and movement around the canvas, in
contrast to which the dragon that weaves between the inky washes, is carefully created
by a more disciplined and traditional form of Karma
Gadri Thanka painting.
Trungpa Rinpoché freely portrays the relationship between the dragon and the
elements of earth, wind and fire. The work tells a story of deep Dharmic
significance that later became fundamental to the Shambhala teachings, expressed
in such works as ‘Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism’ and to ‘The Sādhanā of Mahamudra’. The latter
was composed by Chögyam Trungpa as a meditation practice.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoché was a lineage
holder of two great traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, Nyingma and Kagyu. For both,
the symbolism of the dragon is explained as the Wisdom and Power of the Buddha Dharma
proclaiming the truth, the dragon representing fearlessness of truth and
reality. In terms of the Shambhala
teaching, the dragon represents the rising of the Great Eastern Sun. Anything
else is the setting sun of Samsara, which is explained as making one’s own
selfish nest.
The
dragon is painted green, embellished with specks of pure gold, representing the
activity of the Dharma. At the centre of the composition is a Tolkien-like volcano,
an image of the earth forces of the five elements which represent the
disharmony and wrath of the upset Mamos’, celestial beings that are akin to the
elements of the earth and especially sensitive to imbalance within the
environment. From the volcano erupt electric-flashes of luminous orange that
not only flow down as lava, but also dart through the sky as lightening. The
word for Dragon in Tibetan is druk,
the same name given for thunder.
Belching
from the volcano are black plumes of smoke which form the Three Lords of Materialism,
namely of Form, Speech and Mind. This metaphor is explained in detail in the
introduction of ‘Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism’. Trungpa Rinpoche refers
to the Three Lords as one’s own neurosis and actions of the ego. In simple
terms:
The
Lord of Form refers to the neurotic pursuit of physical comfort, security and
pleasure.
The
Lord of Speech refers to the use of intellect in relating to our world and the delusion
one reinforces though speech.
The
Lord of Mind refers to the effort of consciousness to maintain awareness of itself
and that holds onto and perpetuates the sense of ‘I’ and its egocentricities.
The
glorious dragon is seen breaking through the clouds of delusion, flying high
above the lower realms of the swirling turmoil of the dark ages. The lower
portion of the painting appears as dull-coloured, arid, scorched earth, wind-swept
and impoverished, representing the desperate suffering of Samsāra.
There
is no doubt that the 11th Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoché was a pioneer in
delivering Buddha Dharma to the West and was greatly skilled in communicating
the complexities and integrity of the Tibetan Buddhist traditions and practices
for a Western palate. That he was a master at drawing together both Eastern and
Western disciplines is clearly evident in the dragon art-piece, both in
application and symbolism, which like a terma
has stayed hidden from public view, emerging to be as relevant now as the day
it was created.
“We need to find the link between our tradition
and our present experience of life. Nowness, or the magic of the present
moment, is what joins the wisdom of the past with the present. When you
appreciate a painting or a piece of music or work of literature, no matter when
it was created, you appreciate it now. You experience the same now in which it
was created. It is always now.”
[Chögyam Trungpa, from the introduction of ‘The Art of Calligraphy – Joining Heaven & Earth’, Shambhala Publications.]
[Chögyam Trungpa, from the introduction of ‘The Art of Calligraphy – Joining Heaven & Earth’, Shambhala Publications.]
- Tashi
Mannox, January 2013, in the year of the water dragon, amended May 2016.
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Superb quality life size giclée prints are now available of this unique and rare masterpiece. Each art-print is £500 GBP (not including VAT for Europe and the UK) with all the proceeds going to support 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the present Trungpa Rinpoche in Surmang, East Tibet and The Nalanda Translation Committee - originally founded by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
To place your order please use the email link here
please state your address - International shipping costs may vary, customs tax may apply.
please state your address - International shipping costs may vary, customs tax may apply.
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