Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (Shambhala Classics)

by Chögyam Trungpa

In this modern spiritual classic, the great Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa highlights one of the most common pitfalls for aspirants on the spiritual path: what he calls spiritual materialism. The universal tendency, he shows, is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement-the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty. "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use," he said, "even spirituality." His incisive, compassionate teachings serve to wake us up from this trick we all play on ourselves, and to offer us a far brighter reality: the true and joyous liberation that inevitably involves letting go of the self rather than working to improve it.

256 pages, paperback