Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

Book excerpt: This modern spiritual classic highlights a trick we play on ourselves and offers a brighter reality: liberation by letting go of the self rather than working to improve it The Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa calls attention to the commonest pitfall to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: what he calls spiritual materialism. "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use," he says, "even spirituality." The universal tendency 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. Trungpa's incisive, compassionate teachings serve to wake us up from these false comforts. Featuring a new foreward by his son and lineage holder, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism has resonated with students for nearly thirty years—and remains as fresh as ever today.