Buying Options

Digital List Price:	$15.95
Print List Price:	$15.95
Kindle Price:	$11.77 Save $4.18 (26%)
	includes VAT*

Promotions apply when you purchase

Deliver to your Kindle or other device

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Enter a promotion code or Gift Card

Share <Embed>

Kindle App Ad

Look inside this book.

Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by [Trungpa, Chogyam]

Follow the Author

Chogyam Trungpa

Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism Kindle Edition

by Chogyam Trungpa (Author), Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (Foreword)

150 customer reviews

See all 11 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$11.77

—

—

"Please retry"

—

"Please retry"

$12.76

MP3 CD, Audiobook, CD, MP3 Audio

"Please retry"

$14.18

In this modern spiritual classic, the Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa highlights the commonest pitfall to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: 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. It is a message that has resonated with students for nearly thirty years, and remains fresh as ever today.

This new edition includes a foreword by Chögyam Trungpa's son and lineage holder, Sakyong Mipham.

Length: 280 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Page Flip: Enabled

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Chogyam Trungpa

55

Kindle Edition
$12.99
Chogyam Trungpa

210

Kindle Edition
$13.99
Chogyam Trungpa

19

Kindle Edition
$18.99
Chogyam Trungpa

62

Kindle Edition
$1.99
Chogyam Trungpa

67

Kindle Edition
$12.99
Shunryu Suzuki

729

Kindle Edition
$12.99

Product details

File Size: 2441 KB
Print Length: 280 pages
Publisher: Shambhala; Revised ed. edition (September 28, 2010)
Publication Date: September 28, 2010
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B00HQM20NK
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

X-Ray:

Enabled

Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #143,551 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #46 in Tibetan Buddhism (Kindle Store)
- #68 in Buddhist Rituals & Practice (Kindle Store)
- #71 in Karma Buddhism

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?

Be the first video

Your name here

150 customer reviews

Review this product

Write a customer review

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Bird Maxine Trungma

Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism: A Book That Teaches You How Not to Cheat Yourself or Get Cheated

May 22, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Spiritual materialism means making use of spirituality to gratify the desires of ego. On the grossest level, it can be like in the old song, "So Long It's Been Good to Know You," where the preacher talks to his flock about the coming of the end of this world, and then takes up a big collection and disappears with it. It can be traveling around the world, collecting the statues and icons of all the different spiritual traditions, and then displaying them in one's home to show off to the neighbors how culturally sophisticated and religiously open-minded we are. Or it can be even more subtle in the sense that we do not gain any overt benefit from our spiritual practice at all, but we merely collect spiritual credentials in order to demonstrate to ourselves, "See, I am a good person" or "See, I am a wise person." "I have helped so many people! I am always on the giving end of things, and I am proud to realize it!" .

The problem with spiritual materialism is that we cheat ourselves with it; we try to profit from it, but we lose as a result. Maybe we feel wonderful about having earned an important sounding credential within our church; we have now become one of those people who walk around with a VIP button on their lapel. Maybe there is nothing wrong with the button, but if we mistake it for genuine spiritual accomplishment and stop working on our own hearts and minds as a result, then we have truly done ourselves a disservice.

Although spiritual materialism is rampant nowadays, Chogyam Trungpa made its dangers very clear in his original teachings, many of which are contained in this book. I would say that Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism is a must read for everyone who may be considering embarking upon a spiritual journey, or even for those people who have already begun and wish to stop, catch their breath, and take a second look at where they are going.

30 people found this helpful

Comment

Powerful and transformative

May 28, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is, by all measures, the most magical and powerful book on spirituality in general and Buddhism in particular, I have ever read. This is nothing like the usual New Age "positive thinking" garbage, which otherwise tends to pollute the spiritual book department. This is living, breathing wisdom in book form.

It manages to strike the head of the nail of a cancerous issue in modern Western spirituality: The desire to wear your spiritual "achievements" as a crown and a proof of your superiority. Trungpa disassembles this notion, in a very direct and easy-to-understand way, and leaves you naked and (hopefully) with a little less ego. Back in the human realm.

This is not a book for the faint-hearted. It is a book for people who would like to expand their understanding of the human condition and the traps and dead-ends of spiritual communities.

16 people found this helpful

Comment

one of the best introductions to the Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist path

June 20, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is a collection of talks given in the early 1970s at Karme Choling in Barnet, VT. by my root teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. I first read this book in 1973. Now, my students at Sokukoji Buddhist Monastery are still studying this book as a group every Tuesday evening. Probably, one of the best introductions in the west to training the mind and to understanding the Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist path.

9 people found this helpful

Comment

September 6, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

In a nutshell, worth reading over and over. I keep coming back to it. I also decided to buy the Audible version to listen to while commuting. I won't attempt to explain in detail why it supersedes many other books of this genre. I will say it is very direct and relevant. I am older in age, but I believe the original audience was relatively young. In this and other respects I believe you will find it unbiased and universally applicable. But it is especially for those who feel drawn to a life path characterized by an exceptionally deep wish to help all living beings.

3 people found this helpful

Comment

Nancy Witherell

Compassion for Self Enables You to Enter into the Dance of Life.

March 29, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

He starts at the beginning of the Yoga practice - not the goal of nirvana. In the beginning it is to have compassion for yourself so you can enter into the" dance of life". His other remarks on compassion are mind-expanding.His description of what I as a Westerner would call ego-formation were very thought provoking and also in line with my understanding of the function of the ego. The last part of the book was not useful to me at this stage of my life because I am not trying to attain full enlightenment. If I were seeking that I would go to his book.

8 people found this helpful

Comment

Must-read for serious practitioners!

May 11, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A must read for anyone on the spiritual path. Though Trungpa's writing can go all over the place and sometimes not follow any kind of linear path or thinking, the subject matter is very important for any serious practitioner to study. The last thing to go before complete enlightenment is the ego! Sometimes we create an ego from spiritual practice rather than dissolving it!

2 people found this helpful

Comment

rally_squirrel_west

August 10, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book is best understood in reading it in a group setting or with the guidance of someone who has spent time along the Way. With this, or perhaps strong individual capacity it can be a be a quite helpful text that deserves many revisits to continue assimmulation of the material, which attempts to describe the non-conceptual experience of liberation, a daunting task; more for the reader than the writer.

2 people found this helpful

Comment

gnostic student

Excellent, Deep

April 30, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Of all the Buddhist discourses I have read, those of Chogyam Trungpa strike me as cutting deeper and having a fresher quality of fearlessness. I say fearless because I have a sense that the author often borders on irreverence, but this turns out to be the right way to approach these topics. It seems like the sense of reverence I get from many other authors has an aspect of caution to it, like they have to be careful not to speak too clearly or too specifically for fear that they may say the wrong thing or explain incorrectly. Probably this is a false kind of reverence that is rooted in lack of understanding.

Comment

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

Set up a giveaway

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Chogyam Trungpa

210

Kindle Edition
$13.99
Chogyam Trungpa

62

Kindle Edition
$1.99
Chogyam Trungpa

55

Kindle Edition
$12.99
Shunryu Suzuki

729

Kindle Edition
$12.99
Chogyam Trungpa

19

Kindle Edition
$18.99
Chogyam Trungpa

45

Kindle Edition
$29.99

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.

Would you like to report poor quality or formatting in this book? Click here

Would you like to report this content as inappropriate? Click here

Do you believe that this item violates a copyright? Click here

English $USD - U.S. Dollar United States

Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Interest-Based Ads
© 1996-2019, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates