In what he calls a "200 percent potent" teaching, Chogyam Trungpa reveals how the spiritual path is a raw rugged "unlearning" process that draws us away from the comfort of conventional expectations and conceptual attitudes toward a naked encounter with reality. The tantric paradigm for this process is the story of the Indian master Naropa (1016-1100), who is among the enlightened teachers of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Naropa was the leading scholar at Nalanda, the Buddhist monastic university, when he embarked upon the lonely and arduous path to enlightenment. After a series of daunting trials, he was prepared to receive the direct transmission of the awakened state of mind from his guru, Tilopa. Teachings that he received, including those known as the six doctrines of Naropa, have been passed down in the lineages of Tibetan Buddhism for a millennium.

Trungpa's commentary shows the relevance of Naropa's extraordinary journey for today's practitioners who seek to follow the spiritual path. Naropa's story makes it possible to delineate in very concrete terms the various levels of spiritual development that lead to the student's readiness to meet the teacher's mind. Trungpa thus opens to Western students of Buddhism the path of devotion and surrender to the guru as the embodiment and representative of reality.
Illusion's Game: The Life and Teachings of Naropa, Trungpa Chogyam, Shambhala Publications, Paperback, 178 pages, $19.95

Chogyam 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.

CONTENTS: Illusion's Game: The Life and Teachings of Naropa
Editor's Forword		vii
PART ONE: "LIFE OF NAROPA" SEMINAR I -- New York, 1972
1	Naropa and Us	3
2	Genuine Madness and Pop Art	8
3	An Operation without Anesthetics	32
4	Something Very Tickling	50
PART TWO: "LIFE OF NAROPA" SEMINAR II -- Karme-Choling, 1973
1	Pain and Hopelessness	55
2	Giving Birth to Intellect	69
3	Choiceless Awareness	87
4	Beyond Shunyata	100
5	Mahamudra	116
6	Levels of Mahamudra	131
Notes		151
Glossary		153
Transliteration of Tibetan Terms		162
About the Author		163
Meditation Center Information		168
Index		171